Unsolicited Opinions

December 4, 2013

Thoughts on Remixing

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– Or In Which Emily Links You to Many Things –

I doubt I’ll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there’s some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.
– Trent Reznor

When I am displeased with how a genre is handling itself, I endeavor to write what I would like to see out of said genre. This, according to the video series Everything is a Remix, is remixing – the process of copying, transforming, and producing something new based on the work of others. In this instance, I am taking a genre, which has certain conventions and tropes associated with it, and reusing or transforming the tropes associated with that genre.

But what is the actual argument here? What is Kirby trying to say – because he certainly sounds negative. Well, that’s an issue of delivery, and we’ll return to that.

The point Kirby attempts to make over the course of four videos is that everything is the product of people accumulating ideas, playing around with them, and rereleasing those mashed-up and revamped ideas into the world as original products. This concept applies to music, movies, books, inventions, tv shows, and a myriad of other things that comprise our digital and physical culture. The problem is that American society has all but made remixing impossible by condemning copying.

Don’t get me wrong, simply reproducing someone else’s work without crediting the original creator is wrong (like, disgustingly wrong). However, as the remix videos point out, we learn by copying. Hell, that’s how genres become genres; someone writes a fringe story that doesn’t quite fit current conventions, someone else writes based on that fringe concept, and suddenly we have an All-Vampire young adult section at our local bookstores.

It is my belief that remixing – in it’s true, transformative role – fundamentally changes the concept behind the original work. It’s why the song The Warning by Nine Inch Nails sound completely different from The Warning [Stefan Goodchild Remix]. The remixed song conveys a different message; even though it contains the same lyrics, it tells a different story*. And if you change the story, you haven’t reproduced an exact copy. The story, for me (if you’ve been paying attention), is key to the ‘originality’ of something.

(As it happens, Nine Inch Nails runs an official remix site in which they release the tracks of all of their songs and encourage fans to remix to their hearts content. Trent Reznor has also released a nine-part album [four parts of which were free] to the world so that anyone could remix and change those tracks.)

I’m not going to get into an argument about copy right law here – though I want to, because copy right law is the most ridiculous thing – because Part 4 of Everything is a Remix makes the argument better than I can. What I will say is this – without remixes in music, we would have never had the ‘golden age’ of hip hop. We wouldn’t have an alternate interpretation of Year Zero (an album that went so far into storytelling, it created a universe). We wouldn’t have Star Wars or Star Trek or Stargate. Society would have missed out on countless books loosely based on life, on genre, on problems with fantasy.

Let the world remix, because we’re missing out on that kind of originality.

 

October 24, 2013

Take the Sky From Me

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– Or Why Firefly is Different from Buffy, and How It’s Air Schedule Crippled It Narratively –

Aside from the obvious, Friefly demonstrates a departure from the narrative structure of Buffy. Starting from the episode Serenity, which is the canonical starting point for the series, viewers are thrown into the end of a war that serves as a backdrop and anchor into the setting that Mal and Zoe are a part of. Over the course of the episode, we are introduced to the well established crew – family – of the Serenity, rather than watching the crew form (as with the Scooby Gang in Buffy). All of this would be super overwhelming were it not for Simon, River, and Book, three passengers on the Serenity who get caught up in the crew’s antics. These three characters provide a relatable and stable (or unstable, in the case of River) anchoring point for views to get used to the banter, relationships, and conflicts common to Mal’s motley crew.

The way Firefly was aired, however, ruins this anchoring point.

Firefly’s first official episode, according to Fox, is The Train Job, which, in order of filming and production was the second episode. In this version, all viewers have in the way of anchoring is a short series of clips from the first episode narrated by Book, and even that doesn’t fully explain what the hell is happening. The bar fight does little to explain Mal all that much (though, he is a rather complex character, so not a whole lot of introductions are adequately going to explain Mal), or Zoe, or Jayne. Or Wash, for that matter. Simon and River are already established parts of this small community (though they are still outsiders) and Book is really…full of questions.

This, understandably, leaves the audience confused.

In any good work of fiction – book, television, movie, or otherwise – it is vital that you give the audience what I have been calling ‘anchors.’ These are concrete details about the setting, the main characters, or the plot that the reader can latch onto before they figure out how the universe they are entering works. In Firefly, the passengers Mal picks up are anchor characters – they are just as confused and out of their element as the audience is. When thrown into a show where the anchor characters have already been explained in an unaired pilot, the audience is left groping for a handhold and are let down. This causes them to abandon the story except for a few heroic cases (the original Browncoats).

To avoid turning this into a rant against Fox, I will end on this – Firefly is a weird story. It is a non-conventional mash up of the Sci-fi and Western genres and a mash up like that requires narrative anchors, or the story will never float. Joss seemed to have provided those anchors in Serenity, which where then not provided by the cable network. The situation surrounding this show is, of course, complicated, but some of the blame (I think) on why it failed is because the airing order and dates provided by the network ruined the narrative construction of the series.

September 22, 2013

Mind the Tech

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– Or How To Properly Acknowledge Your Tech –

“Once [technology] becomes ‘woven into the fabric of daily life’ every once-new technology seems natural, and therefore somehow ‘inevitable,’ and it becomes tough to imagine living in the world without it.”

-Jodi Shipka

We’re back, ladies and gents, to talking about technologies and how they impact writing. Specifically, I would like to focus on the fact that we don’t really ‘see’ the technologies we take for granted, and how lecture-like this post is sounding.

Let’s change that.

So, while struggling perusing through Jodi Shipka’s book, Toward a Composition Made Whole, I was struck by the above quote. Do we really not notice the technologies we use once they become common place? Certainly, it does become harder to imagine a world without, say, desktop computers. But how can we not be fully aware of the technology we use and how it limits or improves the way we work?

Shipka provides a compelling example to back this statement up: If you were to call one of your friends, you likely would simply describe the event as “I called up El and screamed about space for an hour” (well, maybe not that dramatic, but, hey). You would not sit down and list out the reasons that call was made possible. For example, you likely would not say, “Thanks to electricity, phone lines, cables, a dial tone, ring tones,a numbered key pad, etc., coupled with the fact that the person I was calling and I are both fluent in the English language…” and both have an appreciation for space and functional knowledge of it’s basic structure, as well as both being invested in space, I was able to call El and scream about space for an hour.

So, quite literally, you would gel over the fact that electricity and technologies that go into phones helped you accomplish a task. In that sense, I do believe that we have a tendency to forget about the role of technology in our day to day lives. I do think it’s important to realize this, and maybe spend some time thinking about how each technology we take for granted affect our ability to function in the world we live in. I also agree with Shipka’s observation that, were we to take the time to think about how we use technology, and how it affects not only our writing, but how our bodies are involved in our writing, it can help us imagine new ways of thinking about ‘texts.’

There is one thing I disagree with, however, and that is the idea that technology completely fades into the background. Now, I am speaking mostly about writing ‘tools’ – pens, paper, word processors, mobile devices – and not the things that power them, so perhaps my idea is a tad limited. But I feel as though I am constantly reminded of how technology influences my writing. When I write with pen and paper, I am always aware that my chosen tool is slower and less precise than my word processor. When working with Microsoft Word (and, therefore, procrastinating on the internet), I feel as if I can’t write anything and am wasting my time. Perhaps I do not notice the tool itself, but I do recognize it’s effects; I think everyone, in some way, recognizes the effects of a tools they use when producing texts. Or, perhaps, I am simply optimistic about the amount I think about the technology in my life in relation to how others think about their own tools.

September 3, 2013

An Explanation

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– Or Why Am I Here? –

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I had a blog called “What do I do With a BA in English,” and it was glorious. Granted, I was required to blog for the Honors program, but I legitimately enjoyed it. More recently, however, that blog is being required to be something it wasn’t supposed to be — a glorified inbox for seminar assignments. I firmly believe that blogging as an assignment sort of defeats the overall purpose of running a blog, so, here I am.

New title.

New layout.

Old tricks.

I will be using this blog to talk about writing, composition, video games, movies, and everything and anything else that catches my eye, because that is what I enjoy talking about. It is likely that I will also be relating most of it to one of my college courses this semester (Writing and Digital Media), in part because I must, but mostly because that class is exciting and new and freaking awesome.

So, welcome. I have been at this blogging thing for a while now. If you want to see a sampling, I’ve relocated my favorite posts from the old blog here. Have fun, and I’ll see you on the flip side.

 

July 18, 2013

Incoherent Babbling

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– Or HOLY LONG POST, BATMAN –

I’m going to be incoherently babbling about Night Vale and Desert Bluffs, as described in The Sandstorm (19A and 19B). If you haven’t gotten to this part in the podcast yet, not to worry! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS AND COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF BULLSH*T. IT PROBABLY MAKES NO SENSE. IT HAS NOT BEEN EDITED. You have been warned.

Hello, and welcome to the first ever edition of Incoherent Babbling About Welcome to Night Vale. Please, have a seat. Or stand, that’s cool, too.

Onwards.

So, I’ve seen it referenced that Night Vale and Desert Bluffs are parallels of each other, or, rather, are the alternate universes of each other. This seems to make sense, re: the Intern Vanessa/Dana bit in both parts, so that is the theory I am going to be rolling with.

Now, let me begin with Night Vale. Night Vale is a town in the middle of the desert (plot wise), and a mode of satire for America and American politics (meta wise). Sure, it’s a town where strange things happen on the regular and the citizenry are pretty blase about said strange things, but, on the whole, Night Vale is very recognizable as Small Town, USA.

They have everything you would expect in a small town – Town Council (albeit a ancient, and sort of creepy Council) which dictates the ‘laws’ of the town, a Mayor, a sheriff and a (secret) police force, small town celebrities (I’m looking at you, Carlos), and a radio show just this side of creepy. Sure, everything is blown out of proportion (it is satirical, after all), but, aside from the Eldritch Horrors, Angels, and Hooded Figures, it’s sort of….Normal.

Well, as normal as Night Vale can possibly be. Which makes Desert Bluffs a perfect foil for Night Vale.

What we know about both towns is what we are told – we know a lot about Night Vale because we are listening to Cecil tell us about the events, hazards, and even things that we are not supposed to talk or even know about. He also tells us things about Desert Bluffs because they are, apparently, Night Vale’s sports rivals. [“Desert Bluffs is always trying to show us up through fancier uniforms, better pre-game snacks, and possibly, by transporting a commercial jet into our gymnasium, delaying practice for several minutes, at least. For shame, Desert Bluffs. For shame.”]

But, other than a few mentions of Desert Bluffs in regards to sports, we don’t know much about Night Vale’s relationship to Desert Bluffs.

Let’s talk about Desert Bluffs, for a moment, though. Desert Bluffs, on the surface, seems much more like the real world than expected. If you were like me, listening to Desert Bluffs Public Radio was a bit surreal. Thing is, it tells us a lot about the town. Kevin doesn’t seemed bothered by the events in The Sandstorm – everything seems like a perfectly normal parallel to Cecil’s broadcast.  Except for one thing; the doubles. Now, it was certainly easy enough to believe that a desert town that was not Night Vale would not really be concerned with a sandstorm out side of work delays and such (though the way they talk about work, it seem like that’s all anyone does ever); however, the initial encounter with the doubles, out on route 800 near exit 66, Kevin reports it exactly as Cecil reports it: “I am getting one report that there are several stalled cars on the north bound lanes…police are on the scene dealing with fist fights in the middle of the road! Now, I can’t imagine why, in a beautiful town with so many kinds of yogurt stores and pony petting stations anyone would want to fight his neighbor!”

Okay, so it’s not exactly the same a Cecil, but there is something all too nice and flowery about this report. Kevin is trying really hard to make everything seem fine. He seems to be trying to earn our trust, or, at least, he is written so that we, the listener, will immediately trust him. Sure, Desert Bluffs sounds a bit off, and Strex Corp’s ad – “Look inside you. Strex. Go to sleep. Strex. Believe in a Smiling God. Strex Corp is everything” – is a bit more menacing than things we have heard in Night Vale, but Kevin seems normal! Surely we can trust him, right?

It seems that way, but here’s the thing – we’ve been with Cecil for 19 episodes, and he generally tells the truth. Yes, he is an unreliable narrator, so ‘truth’ is relative, but he tries. He never hides things from citizens unless the report is, you know, about something we’re not supposed to know about (like the Shape in Grove Park). Corrections are given frequently, and Cecil generally acknowledges the oddities of his “little human town,” and seems concerned for those who live in Night Vale, with the exception of Steve Carlsberg and the Apache Tracker. In fact, with how terrifying the Council and the Secret Police are, they are at least acknowledged (“That’s the Sherriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.”).

But I am willing to bet you wouldn’t hear anything like that about the Strex Corp black helicopters; reason being is the huge disparity between what Cecil reports and acknowledges, and what Kevin reports. Let’s return to The Sandstorm, shall we? After the initial report of fist fights, the fighting of doppelgängers continues in Night Vale, and the Council has declared that, should you meet your double, you should “kill your double.” Cecil, of course, says that he does not think that violence is the answer, and will not kill his double if he meets him.

Then, he is interrupted by a rustling noise. Intern Dana is fighting with her double (“Dana, who are you fighting in there?”) Cecil leaves to break it up. In Desert Bluffs, Kevin, too, is interrupted from discussing the productive joys of having a double, by rustling. Intern Vanessa is, apparently, conversing with her double. (“Vanessa, who are you talking too?”).  Kevin then says that Vanessa and her double are building a shelving unit; minutes later, he find Vanessa standing over Vanessa with a ‘cold compress’ and a staple gun. (Dana, or Dana’s Double, is also standing over her double, holding an email and a broken stapler.)

This is where I lost faith in Desert Bluffs. Initially, I simply thought they saw things differently in Desert Bluffs, like, the sandstorm had a different effect on this town, but I believe something far more sinister is going on. I read somewhere that violence could be Desert Bluff’s official language, and so they just can’t ‘see’ the violence between themselves and their Night Vale doubles (which is what I, and TV Tropes, believes is going on; Desert Bluffs is the AU of Night Vale), and so don’t understand that they are killing the Night Valians. And that could be true, but I think it’s more than that.

I think this because Kevin’s station terrifies Cecil, and, at most, Cecil’s station just kind of confuses Kevin a bit. Let me explain. The only thing we have heard on Welcome to Night Vale that has caused Cecil’s voice to become strained, weak, and terrified, was Station Management. I mean, granted, the way he describes the DBPR station – “There is blood on the walls. Instead of buttons on the sound board there is just…animal viscera. There is so much blood it is seeping through my shoes” – is fucking terrifying. But this is the Voice of Night Vale we’re talking about, a person who has gown up with the strange and vaguely terrifying, and this scares him.

Mean while, Kevin, is just like “The equipment is much older, certainly much dryer than it should be.” He says that the walls are “darker” and that the desk doesn’t have blood on it. At first, in episode 19A, this sounds kind of innocuous; but after Cecil’s description, I think Kevin is literally just ignoring the fact that there is blood and viscera in his studio. Ignorance is Bliss. “Go To Sleep.”

There is another thing (and this lends credibility to the ‘lack of a common language’ theory) that Kevin finds odd – Cecil’s smile. He says: “Maybe it is the smile. Is that a smile? I can’t say.” I brushed this off initially, but then there is the proverb at the end of 19B – “Step 1: Separate your lips. Step 2: Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step 3: Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.” This is Desert Bluffs, where one cannot tell the smile on another if it is not some sort of weird, forced facsimile of a smile. (Yes, Cecil could, in fact, not be smiling. But that would break the parallelism of these twin episodes.) Cecil, in the Desert Bluffs station, also comments on Kevin’s (or, we assume it is Kevin’s) smile: “His smile…noooooo, it is not a smile. He must be wicked, this man.”

Perhaps all of Desert Bluffs is forced into happiness, or must pretend at all times to be happy, and is not allowed to talk of anything that might be considered ‘abnormal’ for the sake of appearances. I am unsure; what I am sure of is that Kevin is either a liar, or profoundly naïve. One would think that the lack of “so much blood [it seeps] into [your] shoes,” would be something to mention when you get stuck in someone else’s studio. But no, aside for the odd likeness between Kevin and Cecil, and the dry equipment/desk, Kevin does not really acknowledge the differences between the two studios, where as Cecil launches into great, and terrifying, detail. Kevin blithely transitions into the weather; Cecil only puts it on because he is a professional.

On the journey back, Cecil and Kevin reportedly meet. According to Kevin, he hugs Cecil and all is well. According to Cecil, he was attacked, and Cecil tried to “choke the life” out of Kevin, before remembering that he promised not to kill his double. Cecil let Kevin live, and walks away, though he is sure Kevin “has his bruises.” Kevin and Cecil then both remark that they are “glad [their] other is alive” in some fashion, and I think that scares me the most. They are clearly parallels of each other – one is dark and sinister in tone, but is generally nice, and the other is simply dark and sinister, but has a cheery voice – but they are glad the other is alive.

That could mean anything.

And then, in episode 26, Cecil says: “As my mother used to tell me, ‘Someone’s going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror…’” This, of course, may be a coincidence, but when is anything a coincidence in Night Vale? Someone will kill Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Perhaps this is literal, or perhaps it refers to Kevin, being someone and a literal mirror of Cecil (sort of; apparently the eyes are up for debate). Who knows; this is the conjecture part of this crazy essay.

Desert Bluffs and Night Vale reflect each other – Night Vale is an outlandish town where the police will kidnap your children and No One Is Allowed In The Dog Park. Desert Bluffs tries, so very hard, to be normal and becomes a macabre terror in the desert. Things in Night Vale are weird, outlandish, and terrifying, but Cecil talks about those things (even, sometimes, talking about things which should not be talked about) and, though everyone is used to the weird, it is looked at as reality. The weird is not talked about in Desert Bluffs, though the radio station floor bleeds and has teeth, though the Voice of Desert Bluffs has obsidian eyes and a not-smile, none of it will ever be talked about because that sort of talk could probably kill you.

Go to sleep.

February 19, 2013

Writing in Video Games

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– Or Emily Links You to Many Videos, Part One –

I am going to talk about bad writing in video games. And by me, I actually mean the awesome people at Extra Credits. And by talk, I actually mean respond to.

I direct your attention to the video below:

 

The argument in this video, (in case you didn’t watch it, in which case you are missing out on some quality stuff. Please watch it. I’ll wait. Done? Good) is that writing in video games is considered separate from the entire process. I think of this as something akin to writing a script for a movie – you write this script, and then the game gets made and everything is great. Right? Well, not exactly.

For the sake of this blog post (and, let’s be honest, the rest of this series), I will be talking about two games and how they convey their stories: Deus Ex and Journey. Both of these games, in my opinion, have excellent stories. The narrative is handled differently, of course (duh, Emily, jeeze) but over all, they have excellent writing.

“But Journey doesn’t have dialogue!!!” Yes, intelligent reader in the back, but I guarantee a writer was involved. “BUT WRITING NEEDS WORDS.”  Okay, Caps-lock Guy, calm down. Writing does not need words in the world of video games.

Video games are interactive, which means that the story is told through cut scenes, dialogue options, music, codexes, and game mechanics. Journey is a story told entirely through silent, pre-rendered cut scenes and the mechanics of your little clothite’s journey, which are incredibly simple. Yet, there is undoubtably an incredibly moving story in those mechanics.

Let’s look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though, because that game does have dialogue. The story in this game is delivered through dialogue options and cutscenes, and less through the mechanics at first glance. Except you have so many valid ways of game play, and so many options that also affect the story – you can read every single email and ebook, for instance. But Deus Ex does something else that really makes its story interesting- it plays really heavily on your emotions. Seriously, there is a section at then end that feels terrifying and dangerous simply because of the music (also, the twist that come out of left field).

The point I’m trying to make here (and really, the point is made much better in the video, so watch it) is that writing for video games involves all of the dialogue and codex entries, but also all of the game mechanics and play options as well. Writers are considered late in development, or considered complet individuals who don’t need to work with the dev team, and I think that’s where writing goes wrong. The writer needs to account for all of the factors that go into something – like camera directions in movie scripts, or the mechanics of a game. And the writer needs to work with the dev team, because they’ll know how everything works.

Essentially, work together, writers/dev teams, and you’ll tell a better story.

tl;dr: Emilly rambles about video games and you should really watch Extra Credits. 

 

August 25, 2012

Torn From The Map of Michigan

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– Or Childhood Memories –

When I was five years old, we lived in a tri-level house on the corner of Boston Blvd and Quincy. It was this strange rosy-purple color – the siding, that is – and had no garage. The yard on the left was flanked by pink-rose bushes, and we had three trees in the yard. In the fall, there were enough leaves on the grass that my dad could gather them into a pile about as big as I was at the time, and I’d jump in them.

My room was in the basement, sort of – my window opened up to the ground. We had a computer room on the third floor, where my dad would work, and there was a green futon in it, and it matched the green lamp on the desk that always reminded me of my dad’s office at work, for whatever reason. I think he had a similar one on his desk there.

I remember the night my brother was born, and leaving the house with my grandparents to got see him for the first time. (I held him and he burst into a fit of tears; the picture is quite hilarious.) I remember the small craft table I had in the kitchen, and the couches in the living room; I remember sliding around in my socks on the wood floor. Parading around with my brother, bags or blankets on our heads.

On some Saturdays, my family would pile in the car and drive into East Lansing, onto the Michigan State campus, and we’d feed the ducks on the Red Cedar River, or wander the campus. Sometimes, we’d spend the day at the Beal Botanical gardens; this huge park filled with exotic and common flowers that wound around pathways and duck ponds. At one end, you entered from the street – from the sprawl of the city directly into this beautiful field of plants – and, at the other, was this huge, mesh peacock that the grounds keepers covered in flowers in the spring and summer.

I remember art fairs that sprawled over the entire college campus. I remember MSU, and its buildings that reminded my of gingerbread houses. And I remember trees – East Lansing was one of the few places with trees.

Later, when we moved to a dinky little township called Delta, I would build memories in the holes dug for house foundations, basements with no home to claim them, and piles of misplaced dirt. I would walk down to the creek behind my house – and, in one specific, freak incident, walk down in the middle of April, clad in snowpants, a jacket, and boots, to walk atop the frozen water. I remember the crushing despair at having to leave that place.

I remember Michigan, and I do believe I over romanticize it a bit, but it was my early childhood. I went to preschool there, kindergarden, first grade, and had three recesses! And it was dreadfully hard to leave. But, looking back on it, even though I miss the walks by the Red Cedar, and wandering around the MSU campus with my parents, and vehemently declaring that I would never, ever got the Michigan State, I also appreciate that it lead me to Virginia. It lead me to where I am today and still influences who I am today (if Soup Night and my lack of spice tolerance are any indication).

I suppose the point of all the grossly nostalgic writing is this – I think it’s important to know where you come from, and to look back, every once and a while, on the things you remember and how those memories shaped, and continue to shape, who you are as a person.

April 5, 2012

Literary Superiority

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– Or Storytelling 4; Let the People Read What They Want (Emily Gets Ranty) –

‘The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.”’

-Joel Stein, New York Times “Room for Debate”

In his op-ed, “Adults Should Read Adult Books,” Joel Stein expresses his opinion that adults, unless reading them to a child, should not read books like Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games. These books were written ‘for children,’ and therefore have none of the complexity, depth of vocabulary, or thought provoking points that adult books have. And Stein knows this without having read The Hunger Games, and he vows “I’ll read “The Hunger Games” when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults.”

This is the sort of argument that I hate, and it always seems to arise from authors, or English majors, or journalists – it’s the argument of Literary Superiority. It’s the argument that, because some 30 year old is reading Candide, he/she is superior (mentally?) to the 30 year old reading Harry Potter on the plane.

I’ve heard several variations on this argument, and every single time I am left with the position of “What?” I genuinely don’t understand where this argument comes from – I am usually just ecstatic to see people reading in general. I don’t understand why these “levels of acceptable books” exist.

I understand that, if an author is determined to write a book for 13-year-olds, its going to be vastly different from a book for 16-year-olds. It will have a different vocabulary, it will have different plots, but that does not mean that it is any less valid, any less thought provoking, any less relevant. Some are better than others (I’m not saying every piece of Young Adult fiction/Children’s fiction is a work of art) but you can’t lump them all together and say that they are less than adult books simply because of their genre.

There are several “kid’s” books part of literary cannon – The Hobbit, Treasure Island, Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland – these are all considered literature, and they are all stories written for children. Children’s stories and books, Young Adult books – the best ones often tackle deep, frankly adult issues. Childhood has the association of innocence, that we can’t teach them about death, illness, or the evils of the world. Therefore, books written for teenagers or children are lesser because they aren’t ‘adult.’

But the fact of the matter is, people like Joel Stein don’t read children’s/young adult books because of this ideal, and then think that the have a basis for an argument because “they’re written for innocents. Don’t read them because you’re not innocent.”

Joel Stein says: “Let’s have the decency to let tween girls have their own little world of vampires and child wizards and games you play when hungry.”

You’re not being decent; you sir, are being ignorant of the impact fantasy and reading can have on children, teens, and adults. If an adult wants to read The Hunger Games, let them read it. They are open minded enough to give it a chance – if you have a problem with it, please go bury your nose in your ‘real literature’ and leave us ‘children’ alone.

March 8, 2012

Reading is Not a Chore

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– Or Why I Need a Bookshelf at School and You Need One Too –

and this blog post is probably going to bore you, but I need to talk about something, because I haven’t talked about anything for quite a long time. I’m going to talk about books, and why I need to read more books, and why people in general should read more books, because, as a society, we don’t read enough. We includes me, by the way – I don’t read enough. I don’t read enough and I am an English major. (Also, if you haven’t noticed already, this post is going to be a bit rambly – in the style of Rules of Attraction, cause it’s awesome.)

I figure I’m not reading enough because I’m already so bombarded with information that part of me just doesn’t think it can handle all the fiction, and that’s just a ridiculous notion because, come on, it’s fiction. It’s supposed to be an escape from all the work I have to do – a little place of awesome where I can forget about that terrible Philosophy essay I just handed in and pretend I’m a Hobbit. Or am friends with Dr. Watson. Or can cast spells and actually go to Hogwarts, instead of boring old regular school. Fiction shouldn’t be work, and I’m getting increasingly worried that it’s becoming work, mostly because of boring English classes taught by boring English teachers who do nothing to point out how exciting it all is, all of these word, phrases, clauses, and other bits of grammar. They should be explaining how damned cool it is that the monster in Frankenstein is essentially just the monstrous undertones of Victor’s personality, or how Holden spends an entire book trying to get people to listen to him and he can’t even get the reader to listen to him. Literature is cool – but most English teachers make it boring and inflexible and a chore. And thus people think that it’s always a chore and stop reading. They stop reading like the theoretical readers of this blog have probably stopped reading by now because something has made reading hard and unfun rather than cool and awesome.

And it is cool and awesome, which is why I have a huge list of books that I am going to read this year. I am going to read and attempt to finish all of them, unless the book becomes laborious and sluggish (I’m looking at you, Fellowship of the Ring), in which case I will throw the book in the ‘unenjoyable’ pile and move on to the next. I’m endeavoring to make reading fun again. It brings a sort of meaning to my life in a way nothing else ever has, and it’s the only handbook writers have to improving their craft, and I just really like books. I encourage the liking of books – I think other people should read at least a little bit, or try at least a little bit, because I promise you will find something that changes your life or out look or idea of the world. Or perhaps you’ll just find an escape.

And before I forget, I should just add that

February 4, 2012

My Life of Stories

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-Or Why I Will Never Be As Good A Writer As Markus Zusak –

-Or Storytelling, Part 2 –

– A Guided Tour Of Suffering –

To your left,

perhaps your right,

maybe even straight ahead,

you find a small black room.

In it sits a Jew.

He is scum.

He is starving.

He is afraid.

Please – try not to look away.

First, some context: The above quote is from Markus Zusak’s brilliant novel The Book Theif, which revolves around a little girl named Liesel Meminger. She lives with her foster parents in Germany, circa 1940 , and fosters a love for reading – a skill which she learns through reading stolen books with her foster father. Also, her family is hiding a Jew in their basement.

There are few words that adequately describe my love affair with this novel. It is quite simply one of the most beautifully written books I have ever had the pleasure of reading (and I am taking my good sweet time reading it.) I use this book for writing inspiration, but probably not in the way you think. I read this book and my self-esteem says:

“Wow. I suck at writing.”

And then I usually respond with:

“Yeah, I do. But I could be better. Let’s get writing!”

This may strike people as weird, but it’s the way I improve – I see someone working in my preferred medium, someone who is significantly better than I am in that medium, and I get this feeling that I need to improve. I need to, in some way, prove to that person that I can write amazing things, I just need to work at it a bit.

This is how I feel with Zusak’s writing. He wrote The Book Thief from the point of view of Death, but he makes Death world weary and haunted. Death takes you on the journey of Liesel’s life because it fascinated him, which, in turn, fascinates the reader. Death points out the horrors of the Holocaust without being heavy handed – in ‘A Guided Tour Of Suffering,’ he merely asks that you don’t look away. That statement resonated so much with me that I nearly cried; how many times do we witness suffering and look away?

Zusak’s writing is beautiful, resonant, relevant, and powerful. He makes his characters into real people – people that you care for – and tears at you with the terrible horrors in their lives. He can sting you with a line and soothe you with a paragraph, make you cry with the turn of a phrase. Zusak’s manages to capture all of the beauty and deformed depravity of the human condition in a way that makes me want to write like him.

I want to be able to influence people the way his writing has influenced me, and that is why I continue to write at midnight each night, because that is the only time I have to myself. It’s why I read my stories out loud to fix tense changes, why I struggle through writers block, why I even bother with the lofty dream of some day being published. I want my writing to matter to someone. I want my characters to come alive on the page, to have a reader make a connection with something that I have written.

These wishes feel very selfish as I write them, but I want to gift my stories to readers. I want readers to dissect, interpret, and attach meanings to my words that I never even imagined while writing them. I want to give people a story, so that they might find meaning in it. Markus Zusak and several other writers have given me the gift of inspiration, and I, in turn, want to give that gift to someone else.

The last line of The Book Thief:

“I am haunted by humans.”

I am haunted by stories, festering in my mind, clawing their way out. I am haunted by the words I want to say, and the stories those words tell. I am consumed by them.

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