Teens Writing For Teens

So you’re on a roll.  You’ve just banged out five thousand words of your novel. You’re convinced that you’ve just written the precise words that you  will win you the nobel prize for literature and then it happens.

Your computer decides this is the exact time that it will show you how evil the world truly is and how much we are at the mercy of computers.  It freezes, or even worse it dies.

We are now in the middle of NaNoWriMo and the laws of the universe has said at least one of our fellow wrimo’s will have had computer issues thus far.  I myself have had a laptop that has decided to be very poetic about its death and slowly begin malfunctioning before what I have no doubt will end in a very dramatic complete refusal to turn on.

So basically what is the moral of this story.  Back up your work!  I know many people who will back up their work with multiple files on the one computer but if your motherboard fails completely it doesn’t matter how many copies you have, you are never going to see them again.

There are a few options with backing up your work.  I have used USB drives, email accounts and external hard drives at one point or the other and they all have their merit.

USB:  Is small and portable, easy to update but also easily corruptible and damaged.  It’s not uncommon to get viruses and physically break the thing when handling it too roughly.  Generally it’s a short-term solution.

EMAIL ACCOUNTS: Is virtual and clearly portable but requires internet access.  It also can drag up quite a lot of your space which depending on how much stuff you’ve got on there can slow things down quite a bit.  It’s also pretty inconvenient if you don’t have constant access to the internet.

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES:  Now these are pretty much bigger stronger versions of USB drives.  They are slightly more pricy but personally I feel they are the safest option; for my work anyway.

So you probably already knew about these methods of backing your work up and are rolling your eyes going ‘well no duh’… But I think that we all fall into the trap of being confident that our computer will co-operate with us when we wake up in the morning.  Prior to my computer giving my evil looks I confess that I only backed up after every ten thousand words or so and even then it is always an afterthought.  It’s not as if I don’t mean to back up my work, but it’s a tedious process, having to find my USB or hard drive, having to re name the file.  But it is such a vital process.

Moral of the story, backing up your work is important.  The computer is not always your friend

~Alyce

NaNoWriMo. The very term strikes excitement into the hearts of many a writer. For many, it’s a chance to let loose, run with the fairies, and write, blissfully unaware of the grammar nazi, editor from hell, and eighth grade English teacher that have – for the time being – been chained to the back of your brain, not to be heard from for an entire month.

Many of us have already begun plotting our entire story out, making up scene charts, drawing characters, and filling out a hundred questions about each of them before November even starts. Some plan to just let their muses take them along for the ride.  It’s the ultimate exercise in write now, edit later. There is only one rule: between 12:01 on the 1^st of November and 11:59 on the 30^th of November, write 50,000 words. It can be anything: a series of poems, fan fiction, or a plot to take over the world for all the creators care. As long as it resembles Novel format, or something close to Novel format, you can write whatever your caffeine-induced crazy fairy lady tells you to write.

If you haven’t heard of NaNo, where have you been the last few weeks?  Just kidding! Go check out their website at www.nanowrimo.org and see what it’s all about. To give a five-second explanation, you basically write a 50,000 word novel in a month. We all see the problem here. Of course the novel isn’t going to be brilliant. You have to write 50,000 words in a month. Now, I don’t know about most writers, but I was once told by a friend of a friend who heard it from a creative writing lecturer that “we only write 500 or so good words a day, everything else is crap until you make it good in the editing process.” She really hit the nail on the head there. NaNo is really a very long writing exercise. You plot, you create, and you write under a time limit, which is a pretty vital skill if we make it to that stage where we have agents going, “You have three months to write a sequel. Ready, set, GO!”

But NaNoWriMo is more than that.  There are some awesome perks to writing a novel under the duress of a 30 day timeline.

• You get to meet actual writers from your local area. Writers that you can meet for coffee to discuss ideas with in person, and talk about things that are relevant to your area. In my local area, our coordinator has organised four events so far, including all night write-ins at the local bookstore and meet and greets.  Needless to say, you meet people you never thought you would meet – people just as crazy as you are for undertaking the challenge.

• Your novel might not be half bad. In turn, you may be able to spit shine it up to a respectable publishable level having knocked out a first draft in a month. Even the most dedicated writers don’t usually knock out a first draft in a month. I mean, who can honestly say that their best ideas have come to them after being sleep deprived, hyped up on caffeine and past that threshold where your rational brain waves bye-bye?

• And finally, thanks to Create Space, Amazon’s self publishing company, anyone who finishes their book has a chance to get a proof copy sent to them free of charge, in paperback form.  (Although they say reasonable postage, so I’m guessing us foreigners will have to chip in something for postage.)  Basically, you get a code, and you don’t have to use it straight away, so after you win you can go back and edit it to your heart’s content and still get a free paperback form of your achievement. Now of course, this deal is to get you into self publishing, which I strongly advise against if you are trying to go the traditional route with other works. But you don’t have to go that far. It’s completely optional.  Just make sure you don’t sign up for an barcode and you’re still a debut author in the eyes of the law.

So now you know the basics of NaNo.

I would like to throw open the floor. What are your NaNo novels about? Are you plotting every scene, or are you going with the flow? What experiences have you had with NaNo? Curious about NaNo?

Good luck!

~Alyce

We have all come across her. She’s the girl who is always dazed and staring into empty space throughout the lesson. Honestly, I do this too. You probably do, too. But she’s the one who only talks about make-up, boys and the latest episode of The Hills.  Some of you are bound to have her in your novel. She may be the ‘queen bee’ at the high school, the one who can’t keep her paws off your main character’s love interest, or the one who constantly annoys your main characters. She can mean big trouble for your main character, but if you don’t get this character right, she can mean big trouble for you, too.

You don’t want to fall into the trap of making your bimbo a basic stock character.

Stock character: A stock character is a stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. (from Wikipedia)

Don’t get me wrong, stock characters can be useful. It’s easier for your readers to recognize and relate to them. But when the character is as overused as the bimbo, then it’s official: Houston, we have a problem.

Here are your common ‘Bimbo’ traits:

· Being wealthy and/or spoiled

· Repeat the word ‘like’ every 5 seconds

· Twirls locket of hair, and blink repeatedly when asking for a favour

· Face caked in make-up

One of the best things about novel writing is that you can take cliché ideas and turn them on their heads. Take your common bimbo for a second. Maybe she is only pretending to be dumb – and she ends up being a super spy who is at the school trying to investigate the latest kidnapping. Don’t be afraid to have fun with your character. Readers love clichés with interesting quirks and twists. Readers are always looking for something new and refreshing – why miss the opportunity to give that to them?

There are many pros of having the bimbo in your novel. They usually bring a comedic input into the story. Bimbo tends to be in embarrassing, cringe-worthy situations. You can have a lot of fun with the character, especially with dialogue. She may do or say things that will make the reader laugh aloud. Try making your character interesting by giving her an interesting background. Maybe she is who she is because of family problems, or it’s her way of keeping her guard. Have you seen Legally Blonde? By the end of the film, everybody was rooting for her! So making your ‘bimbo’ a likeable character is a huge plus!

However, there are also several cons. Many people are offended by the concept of a ‘bimbo.’ They believe it represents woman terribly and tends to be very degrading. So, once you use this character, you are treading on a fine line. Be careful!

Amna is like totally out!

~Amna/Geek_Pride

Having just finished re-reading The Hunger Games, I’m currently in love with Gale.

This got me thinking about all the characters I’ve fallen in love with over the years – specifically the male ones. Living in Hicksville as I do, there’s a serious lack of tolerable boys around here. Fictional boys have become my saviours until university.

But it’s gotten to the point that I’m beginning to think real-life boys will never be able to compete with the likes of Gale, Edward, Jacob, and Mr. Darcy – not to mention my own characters and all those delightful Love Interests I’ve seen in the twifties’ snippets.

Just think about it. There are some serious upsides to fictional boys.

1)   They never smell bad, even after trekking through forests and battling evil creatures for several weeks without bathing. They might smell like sweat, but that is a pleasantly masculine smell, not the acrid reek of BO.

2)   Contrarily, they don’t try to drown themselves and everybody in the near vicinity with Axe.

3)   They always look nice. Even if they’re supposedly average looking, or, as in point 1, have been doing things like slogging through sewers and surviving sand storms, they still look perfectly gorgeous in your mind’s eye. They never need to pluck their eyebrows, trim their nose hair, or wax their backs.

4)   They never seem to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in bodily functions. In fact, they may not even have bodily functions. If they do, they must be very discreet about it, because no one ever seems to notice.

5)   On that note, they never ask you to pull their finger.

6)   They don’t scratch themselves in public.

7)   And they don’t burp and ask you to guess what they ate for lunch.

8)   They can carry on intelligent, witty conversations and don’t consistently reply with monosyllabic words.

9)   Their skills are not limited to opening pickle jars and playing WoW for sixteen hours straight.

10)  Some of them sparkle.

Of course, the downside is, being fictional and all, they’re rather intangible and are typically already smitten with someone else anyway. But up here in Hicksville that’s a minor detail, even if we all know I wouldn’t stand a chance against Katniss should the opportunity arise. ;)

And so I ask you, what fictional character(s) have you fallen in love with? Who contradicts something on this list? And what have I forgotten to add?

Off to start reading Catching Fire, now! *excited squeal* Tootaloo!

- Becca Cooper (AKA Elusive)

And they all lived happily ever after. A single phrase has become synonymous with Disney motion pictures and fairytales alike. I can’t remember a story in my early childhood where the princess wasn’t saved, where she didn’t marry the prince or find whatever enchanted object she was looking for. There is always a cleverly disguised moral, but in the end happily ever after is a given. I suppose when we are young, we don’t want to think about all those details.  Cinderella gets the prince, lives happily ever after… the end… full stop…

Let’s face it: did I, as a child, want to be read to sleep a story of the prince being a pyromaniac or the enchanted crown turning the princess into a toad? Of course not. When I was six, it was happily ever after or else.

But then I started to grow. With that growth came the sad realisation that life didn’t always imitate fairytales, and my book choices reflected that. Generally it was still happily ever after: the bad guy has a convenient exit, and the princess still becomes queen. But by this time it’s hidden. It’s no longer a specific “and they all lived happily ever after.” By now it’s taking the form of life somehow returning to normal, or better than normal. The best friends who were fighting are best friends again.  The lost puppy is returned unharmed.

But by the time we hit the YA range, happily ever after is not a given. Generally something happens to make it seem more real to life.

**SPOILERS AHEAD: In Harry Potter, we got hit with the death of half of the decent characters. In the Hunger Games, Rue dies along with all the other tributes, and in To Kill a Mockingbird – well, we all know what happens there.**

By this time, while we still want a happy ending, we accept that a happy ending does not always come without strings attached.  Not everybody will survive; some conflict will remain unresolved. It is the ultimate metaphor for a teenager’s life. Life isn’t perfect, and we young adult writers know exactly how to capitalise on the fact.

I’ll admit it to you all now. I thrive on the angst, the guilt and the tension as I sit on my bed rushing through the pages hoping for a happily ever after – but not too happy. There has to be a realistic balance.

There are, of course, stories that buck the trend and decide to go with the clearly unhappy ending. As much as the unhappy ending could be the difference between a good book that ends in a warm fuzzy feeling and a great book that has you thinking for hours about why you suddenly don’t have the warm fuzzy feeling, it’s a personal thing, but I find myself hoping for that warm fuzzy feeling.

Back to what I’m actually supposed to write about: writing. I more want to pose the question to you readers out there. How do you feel about happy endings? Do you prefer sad endings? Do you ever think about future reader’s thoughts when you write, or do you write how you feel the story ends?

Thoughts?

~ Leasie