The Revenge of the Search Terms

Following up my previous post on search terms leading to this blog, I've gathered more from the depths of my stat dungeon. Why someone was searching for these and what brought them to my site, I don't know. All I know is I don't think they found whatever they were looking for.

• I hat my school (And I trouser your search term!)
• What is wrong with guys that aren't interesting to women (I imagine what's wrong is they aren't interesting. If you are such a guy, I recommend finding some hobbies. Take up knitting. Golf. Pen spinning. Or if that fails, buy a kitten. Maybe I'm missing a niche for eccentric dating advice.)
• 55555555555555555 (This actually leads to one of my blog posts, but I haven't figured out why anyone is searching for this number. What's important about it? Does it unlock the secrets of the universe? Maybe they're relying on me to say why it's important.)
• Scary rabbit teeth (As anyone bitten by a bunny will know, they do have some pretty scary teeth on them. But I maintain they're not very scary when they're not attached to the rabbit.)
• Fluffy bunny in shark costume (I feel bad this one led nowhere. Just to show I do listen to blog feedback, I've inserted the aforementioned picture below.)

That's all for this year's crop. May the strange searches continue, and I hope the sharkbunny means one more happy searcher somewhere.

Prejudice and the Personality Problem

Every now-and-then, the blogosphere erupts as a specific someone faces prejudice/discrimination of some form. Or a specific person is being prejudiced/discriminatory. Either way, people have a person in mind.

It doesn't take long for the personality problem to rear up. The issue is that no person is perfect (or completely flawed), so making it about a person leaves holes. Discussing those holes draws the discussion away from the actual problems. In some cases, it turns out it wasn't actual discrimination in that specific case... but obviously, this doesn't stop there being an overall problem. It doesn't make the institutionalised discrimination go away.

The most recent of these is about LGBT representation in young adult fiction. It fired off with a post from two authors, who said they'd be asked to de-gay a novel. The agency apparently in question also has their side of the story out (short version: they say they didn't say that). The result is there's a lot of discussion about the specific event and who is right or wrong. There's a whole lot less about the actual issue of institutionalised homophobia.

Easy to lose in the crowd is Malinda Lo's post, with statistics for LGBT representation in YA. As well as looking at overall representation, she split it down into categories. It's not surprising that gay boys outnumber the LBTs, as this frequently happens in awards, communities and other groups aiming to support LBGT rights. And there are the letters that often don't get listed, but also suffer from lack of representation*.

Sometimes, personalities can get people talking. But often, they're used as an excuse to stop talking about the issue and start focusing on the individuals involved. The thing is, institutionalised discrimination really isn't about individuals. It's about the larger systems in place, which are often taken for granted and not challenged. It isn't all one person's fault - they're only a small part of the problem. There isn't only one victim - it's a system that impacts everyone in it.

So does it really matter who is right and who is wrong? It doesn't stop the issue of LGBT representation in YA from existing. We've still got a problem and we're not going to solve it by focusing in on a handful of personalities**.

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* QUILTBAG adds in letters and expands some, to include queer, genderqueer, asexual and intersex (among others).

** A good readerly solution is to support books by under-represented authors or about under-represented groups. A few handy links for your perusal:

Diversity in YA - Includes blogs and recent book recommendations.
Christine A. Jenkins Young Adult Gay/Lesbian Bibliography
Carl Brandon Wiki: List of People of Color in SF
Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge - A community discussing (and reading) books by PoC authors.

[It shouldn't need to be said, but based on the comment threads of some other posts I've read today, I'll make it plain... homophobic comments won't get through comment moderation. If you want to say how terrible it is that gay people are in books because you might catch the gay from the pages, take it to your own blog.]

Musings of an Adult Picture Book Reader

I've always loved picture books. That section of the book shop is a must-visit area, I have my own little book collection and my artwork is clearly picture book inspired (even if it took someone else telling me that to realise what I was doing).

So it surprised me when I first got involved with online writing groups and started to see picture book manuscripts put up for critique. I didn't expect them to be perfect. But many showed no understanding of picture books. It was clear the writer was relying on a vague memory of stories they might have read as a child, rather than having read any picture books recently.

This is in contrast to adult books, where the majority of writers do read other books for adults. The few that don't stand out and are note-worthy. For picture books, it's more note-worthy to come across someone who reads them.

In my ponderings about what makes the lack of reading stand out, I came up with these points*. A picture book reader might still get these wrong, but they'll get more of it right.

• Lack of Repetition - Repetitions are very common. The age range for picture books is the endless repeat age. This is when I watched The Swiss Family Robinson film so many times, I don't think my family can bring themselves to watch it ever again. Just mentioning the words 'Swiss Family Robinson' is enough to elicit shudders.
  
  Common forms of repetition are:
  • Repeated words and phrases.
  • Repeated events, such as a similar conversation with three different people or repeating the same action several times (searching for Spot in Where's Spot?).
  • Pseudo-repeats on a page. Some made up examples: "He searched in the woods. He searched in the house. He searched in the garden." or "Her nose was green. Her eyes were red. Her feet were blue." These are often shown with each line having a mini illustration.
  
  On its own, lack of repetition wouldn't be a major alarm bell. But with everything else, it does stand out.
• Too Many Descriptions - Picture books usually rely on the pictures to describe, and leave the text for the other senses (in Norman the Slug with a Silly Shell, the text never says that his shell is a doughnut - the pictures tell that part of the story). This isn't an 100% rule. Text descriptions may comment on colour, size and so forth. But in general, the amount of visual description is small. Yet in the non-reader picture book attempts, it's often mostly visual description, as though it were a novel.
• Too Many Challenge Words - What I call a challenge word is one a child may struggle over. A book intended to be read aloud by an adult will have more challenge words than one a child is intended to read, but there's still a risk in having so many, it becomes impenetrable.
  
  The usual justification for this is it's intended to teach them the words. You won't teach anyone anything if they can't understand it and give up.
• The Wrong Level of Challenge Words - For a young reader, challenge words include: unfortunately, suddenly and usually. Common words for an adult reader, but not for a young child. When a child is still struggling to read yellow and orange, they're not ready for amaranthine and vermilion.
  
  Which isn't to say picture books don't use unusual words. The Gruffalo forces children to sound out a name they've never heard before, but the rest of the text is relatively straight-forward. Gruffalo is also said as it's written, which is always a plus for challenge words.
  
  If you had a book with vermilion, that's your difficult word. It should not be surrounded by a multitude of equally hard words.
• Lack of Plot - Most picture books have a plot. Those that don't need a strong concept to carry it through (Aliens Love Underpants), and still need some form of escalation and wrap-up at the end. A plotless book about playing with a train set is going to have trouble competing with the aliens.
• Adult Characters - Main characters are often children or animals. Even the humble inanimate object gets more book time than adult characters. For an adult character to work, the adult has to be childlike in some way or do something children would like to do (the adult character in Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish builds a rocket ship to visit the stars). Yet most people with adult characters have the adults do adult things. They go on dates, get married, go to their day job... this lacks excitement.
• Adult Topics - Themes such as torture, child abuse and rape are all a little much for a toddler learning to read. Darkness is more implied at this age (think of the song 'Algie Met the Bear'), and tends to involve slime, bogies and children coming to sticky ends for being bad. You're aiming for icky and/or creepy rather than an 18-rated slasher horror movie**.
• Teaching a Lesson, Sledgehammer Style - Picture books may teach a lesson, but it should be part of the story, not something delivered with the finesse of a sledgehammer. Picture books don't need a South Park "I learnt something today".
  
  And they don't have to teach a lesson (I like to joke that The Gruffalo teaches kids that lying is great, as long as you're smart enough to get away with it).
• Teaching a Subject, Classroom Style - Picture books often include things that may teach, such as having items of named colours, showing directions (he was on the table and she was under the table) or having a character counting something. However, the story shouldn't stop for a lesson in colours. It's a story, not a school lesson.
  
  There are picture books that show basic concepts only, without a story, but there are many books in this market already. It's hard to stand out when your concept is basic and your book has no plot. These books are also unlikely to be ones children read again and again.
• Rhymes - Seeing rhymes isn't an immediate "they don't read picture books", as there are clearly books that make poetry work. But it's remarkable how many people believe picture books must rhyme. Many who attempt rhyming books aren't poets and it shows. Rhymes are forced and the rhythm is off.
  
  If you're not a poet, let go of the rhymes. Dr Seuss makes it look easy, but it really isn't.

All of this isn't to say there weren't any good books. Some of them put my own attempts to shame. But there could be a whole lot more, if only people took the time to read picture books before trying to write them.

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* I'm not commenting on marketing issues, as that isn't something that's immediately obvious from reading. And who knows, if you're awesome, you may write a rhyming book about an office worker and have it sell.

** Watch out for Saw: The Picture Book. I've blogged before about not over-sanitising children's stories, but it can be taken too far the other way. Such stories should entertain them, not traumatise them.

# Books mentioned in this post: Norman the Slug with a Silly Shell (Sue Hendra); The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson [author] and Axel Scheffler [illustrator]); Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish (Michael Foreman); Aliens Love Underpants (Claire Freedman [author] and Ben Cort ([illustrator]); Where's Spot? (Eric Hill).

For Want of a Title

I've seen many things in critique forums, but only rarely do I see people critiquing the title*. For novels, chances are the editors will change it anyway if it's pants. But the same isn't true for shorts, where they often get published with the original author-chosen title. If the title is pants, it's important for critiquers to say so.

Often, it isn't that the title is completely silly. It describes the story well enough. It's just that for shorts, you're competing against the other stories in the table of contents. You want your story to be the one the reader chooses to read first (even in print markets, I don't start at the beginning and read through... I'm not alone in that).

Several months later, you want the reader to remember that title and be able to find it. Call your horror story "The Vampire" and the battle is lost.

It isn't easy to define what makes a distinctive title. It'll vary from reader to reader**. But then, that's what public critique is for... getting a range of opinions. So next time throws you a short for critique, spare a moment on the title.

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* And most times I do see such critiques, it's to tell the author they can't call their vampire romance "Twilight". Though avoiding popular titles is a good thing to mention, it's not the only thing.

** You're welcome to give examples of titles you've loved in the comments (loving your own title doesn't count).