YA Mini Festival: Lili Wilkinson talks Writing from your Life

Session One for me was with Lili Wilkinson (author of Scatterheart, Angel Fish, The Not So Perfect Boyfriend and most recently, Pink), in which she talked writing from life, and book structure.

This post is about her take on Writing from Life. (Structure is the next post)

When we're told to write what we know, it doesn't mean getting out of bed in the morning and going to the toilet then brushing your teeth then grumbling hello to whoever you share your home with and going to the fridge to get your breakfast and are you asleep already because I kind of am.

We all have these experiences. What they're talking about, is writing what YOU know. What's unique about you.

We did lots of exercises. She made us write down things we like, we hate, we fear, our worst habits, physical sensations we love or hate and three things that tell people something about who WE are.

My three were:

• I am a crazy dog lady
• Family is very important to me
• I get anxiety about dancing in public.

These are things that make up MY personality and how I interact with the world around me.

If you know three things like this about your character, you can hang your whole book on it.

We were given time to come up with a plot, in any genre. I thought I'd try a thriller, and this is what I came up with.

(We'll call her) Sarah is a 17 y/o animal lover. Her parents are traveling Europe for a month and she's working at the RSPCA. After hours, Sarah sneaks into the RSPCA and steals the dogs that are reaching their expiration date at the pound because she can't stand them being put down just because they don't have a home.

She has a dozen dogs at her house.

Her older brother who's a down and out type, taking odd jobs comes over and spends the night. He's in a lot of debt and has been working with some pretty dodgy people of late.

The next day he has vanished, as has the newest dog that Sarah rescued.

She gets to the RSPCA to find the dog's uber-wealthy owner, distraught. She'd been away, the dog sitter hadn't told her the dog had been lost.

People think her brother stole him. But Sarah thinks the dodgy people he has been working for have him, and for some reason they took the dog too.

...and so it goes on. It's not a stellar plot, but you see how my love of animals and love of my family have made a plot right here? Because "Sarah" is protective of them, I put them in danger to drive the plot and character forward. I feel like I have the beginning of something Veronica Mars-esque. I didn't quite work in the fear of dancing in public, but I'm sure there could be a hostage swap at a charity function for the animals or something. And not only does she have to dance...but with the BAD GUY. Or whatever.

I reckon Lili's really onto something. :) You could turn those three traits into a sci-fi, a fantasy, a romance. You name it.

Two of Lili's personal traits are being an only child, and changing schools a lot, and she has extrapolated these into her books.

For instance, when plotting Scatterheart, Lili thought about siblings. When you have siblings and no parents, you still have people around, you have support. But to be an only child with no parents? The main character, Hannah's mother is dead and father leaves her to fend for herself in Victorian London where young ladies of wealth aren't exactly independent. So she ends up, through misunderstanding, on a convict ship to Australia. Because she lost all of her family.

Lili's experiences of changing schools and the strange feeling of not quite fitting in at the start because what was cool at her old school was completely daggy at her new school, is also expressed in Scatterheart, in which upper class London girl, Hannah, is thrust into the life of a convict, with beggars, thieves and murderers. The change from wealth to convict changes how those around her treated her. She may not have been thinking about how cool she was, but she certainly had to adapt her own behaviour in order to survive among these new people.

What are some things that describe you, or are important to you?

Next up, Structure! But right now I have a dog demanding my attention so I'll go tend to that. It's very important, after all.

Sairz

YA Mini Festival: Steph Bowe Keynote Speech summary

Yesterday thanks to Express Media there was a YA Mini-Festival held at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne which was a fabulous, informative day.

The keynote speech was given by Steph Bowe (author of Girl Saves Boy), a workshop about structure with Lili Wilkinson (author of Pink, Scatterheart and others) and voice and character with Penni Russon (author of the Little Bird, Dear Swoosie and more) followed by an industry panel with all three authors.

For a young lady of sixteen, I have to say, Steph Bowe conducts herself with such maturity beyond her years. She is softly spoken, speaks eloquently and answers questions thoughtfully. It's just an observation, but one I'm finding is shared by others.

What Steph had to say

She writes because she can't stand NOT writing. She goes a bit crazy if she doesn't do it.

She believes that to be an author, you can't get by just on talent. Writing takes practice and perseverance.

Teens often get a bad rap, they're called bad writers. But Steph believes this is probably because they haven't been around as long. They haven't had the same amount of time as adult writers to practice and hone their craft. (Sarah - valid point)

Older people may have had more time than teens, but if they don't practice writing, just being older doesn't make them better writers.

YA is being embraced by more adults now than it has previously and a lot of us are reading it, it's being embraced more openly than it used to be, it's not as looked down upon as "just writing for teenagers" anymore. (Sarah - this is a fantastic thing)

And yes, lots of adults are reading YA, but we as YA writers should remember that audiences are still predominantly teens.

Steph believes that some parents are embracing YA (Sarah - not only because the writing is so good) but because it's something they can do and share and discuss with their teen. Steph believes this is an excellent way to get your parents to pay for books. :)

So there you go, much less eloquent than how Steph put it, but she made some interesting points, don't you think? I also loved how Steph said that "As Generation Y...or X...I don't know...it doesn't matter, (anyway) Google and I are like besties."

Ah, yes. Google is a friend to all.

Still to come: Lili Wilkinson talks book structure, Penni Russon talks voice and character and all three just talk books!

Australianised American books

I don't know how I feel about this.

Okay so I've been noticing something lately, where American books have been Australianised for the aussie readers.

I approve of this, yes, I do. I imagine the idea is to help us keep our culture and not become Americanised, and start saying things like sidewalk, and talking about inches and feet when we work in metres and centimetres.

And some words are being 'find and replaced' to accommodate our spelling (favoUrite/favorite, mUm/mom) but I'm feeling a bit weird about it lately.

It's a good thought. I like that there's some effort, but there doesn't seem to be ENOUGH effort. Feet has been changed to metres but tank top hasn't been changed to singlet, thongs refer to underwear and nickels and dimes haven't been changed to five and ten cents.

It's a nice thought, to protect our culture and spelling, but in what I've been reading lately, it feels a little half-hearted. And because of this, I doubt it's working. The books are still about american kids. They go to middle school. They catch the big yellow school bus. They are cheerleaders and play on the varsity sports teams. They drive at the age of sixteen and call each other dude and ass hats and that college (university) application process they go through? Man. Teens are stressed about their VCE and HSC and International Baccelarate(sp?) in Australia but it's NOT like that here.

So I guess what I'm saying is, considering the culture in the book is still American, why Australianise some words, but not others? Like the language used in dialogue, Australian teens mimic what they see on American tv shows and read in books. The only thing we're doing by changing favorite to favourite is safe-guarding our spelling.

When books are clearly about American teens, readers will be able to tell. So lets let them be about American teens who have moms and talk about their favorite thing which is six feet tall. (I don't know what that would be mind you...)

If the book could be set anywhere, then I'm all for giving the Australian edition an Aussie flavour.

I hope to get that opportunity with my own books.

That's all I have. It's just something I've been thinking about.

Sairz

I did it

There are a couple more Melbourne Writers Festival posts to go up, but in the meantime I have some very exciting news to report.

I finished writing my novel two days ago. This is a pic from the celebrations:

Okay, not really. I found it in Google Images. Real celebrations included me sitting on my bed with my lap top, smiling. And then watching some Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And then going to sleep. You don't have to tell me - I know I'm hardcore.

But I totally smiled like this. This is a REAL PHOTO OF ME two nights ago when I finished writing.

You don't have to say it, but thank you. I know I have a really pretty smile.

Now comes the fun part (in an "oh God make it stop" kind of way) of revision! So this will technically be my second round of revision, but considering the first round of revision was essentially a complete rewrite, I don't think that counts as revision, right?

I'm pumped. I'm excited about this book. I think it's romantic. I think it makes you squirm and cringe when you're supposed to. And it's funny - and it's totally MEANT to be! Mind you I haven't read it back yet. But I'm going to within the next couple of days.

I don't want to send it to my agent until I know it's my best work. But the thing is...how do you know when something is the best it can be?

In puzzlement, I leave you.

Sairz

MWF - Chris Morphew & Gabrielle Lord in 'Action!'

Huh. Okay well that picture of Chris Morphew I was copying was a picture of HIM and not his book cover, but I'm cool with a little mystique so I'll stick to the book cover.

Good morning boys and girls!

I sat on the steps way up the back of the theatre for this sold out session with lots of enthusiastic school kids who wanted to know all about writing Action! books.

Chris Morphew is the author of 12 - or is it now 15? - of the hugely popular Zac Power books and has his own YA series the Phoenix Files, in which he's just finished writing the first draft of the fourth book.

Gabrielle Lord has written a multitude of adult books about crime, but you may know her from her series Conspiracy 365 that started in January and each month a new book is coming out. If she hadn't written them all ahead of time, I would have a nervous breakdown at that sort of pace! Eeep!

Anyhoo, Chris and Gabrielle both have different techniques to conducting research for their books, and both agree that explosions are integral to their plots.

Chris's research into blowing things up is conducted on the couch in front of action movies, as he claims he has a pretty good handle on how they work this way.

Gabrielle, however, has experience blowing things up. In what felt a little bit like too much information, now-we're-going-to-find-half-the-boys-in-the-audience-blowing-stuff-up-cos-you-taught-them-how-to, Gabrielle explained that in the past she had blown up bunny rabbits, much to the shock of her audience and she seemed extremely regretful, but in the past she and family had put explosives down rabbit warrens. They may be cute, but they are a pest. Like foxes.

They shared these great tips for how to write an action suspense book.

• Readers will go along with a complex plot (and they both excel at complex plots) if you have something fun happen too. Like things exploding.

• Characters need to have a goal, while being chased. In Gabrielle's book, her protagonist Cal has to survive 365 days being chased. 12 books of that would be pretty boring if he wasn't active, and had some goals of his own. Chris added that 'Don't die, is a pretty good motivator'.

• Suspense writing is about with holding information from your readers. You the author know it, but your readers and characters don't. Will he survive? MAYBE.

• When your characters manage to solve a problem, that solution should create 5-6 new problems that then need to be dealt with (I hadn't actively thought of this before, and I think it's genius).

Great tips, right? Now go forth and write something thrilling!

Sairz

MWF - Melina Marchetta "How I Write"

To an audience of roughly 400 high school students, Melina Marchetta gave hope to those struggling with their studies.

'How I Write', a conversation with the author of Looking for Alibrandi, The Piper's Son, On the Jellicoe Road, Finnikan on the Rock was an interesting insight into her practice.

Melina left school in year 10, at the age of 15 (and still turned out okay). She claims that she definitely wasn't a model student, though she did well in English, she was mostly a B and C student in her other subjects.

Personally, I love to hear this sort of story coming from successful people, in the career that they love, and I'm sure there were lots of young adults in the audience, feeling the pressure of school and just not being able to bring in the grades they want that would have appreciated hearing it too. When at school, many kids can get caught up in the idea that your academic performance is going to dictate your future. For most of us, it's not the case.

Sorry - back to Melina. She said that she starts first with character, and she is not one of those people who has a million stories in her head waiting to be written. She has to wait until her characters start talking to her and revealing themselves. It once took several years for a new character to come to her and she hopes that never happens again, but in the middle of writing that book, she had a brand new character, Tom, pop into her head and her life who made concentrating on the original work extremely difficult. There is no balance, clearly. There's too little or too much!

One of the students asked how many books she had written before getting one published, and she told of a novel she wrote before Looking for Alibrandi, which was bad. So, so, so bad. But, it was about a girl who lived in a coastal town and met her father for the first time (which happens in Looking for Alibrandi).

Melina made it clear that she wrote a bad book to begin with, but it taught her something and ultimately influenced how she wrote Alibrandi, her first published novel.

This resonated with me particularly as I am rewriting a book at the moment, in which I essentially kept the characters and their relationships to each other, but have thrown out the original plot altogether. Perhaps this book is my Alibrandi.

What I took away from this session, was to not be afraid of writing bad books. Nothing is a waste, and what I hope some of the audience took away is that how well they perform in high school is not the be-all and end-all. They can still reach for the stars and get them, even if they do get a C in maths.

Sairz

Melbourne Writers Festival Volunteers

Melbourne, the City of Literature is alive and bustling with writers at the moment, because at Federation Square, The Wheeler's Centre, Town Hall and other venues, the Melbourne Writers Festival is in full swing!

To me, volunteering at the festival is the best way to attend it, and I think even when I have books out I'll still try and volunteer. Wonder what the protocol is there? Anyway, not only do you get to attend as many sessions as you can, for free (if there's room for you) but you get to meet all sorts of book lovers and book makers. I had a fabulous day working on the "Whole Shebang" workshop (I'd say it was more like a day at a conference) and met many of the speakers - editors, agents and writers alike, not to mention the other volunteers and fantastic participants who are so passionate about books, writing and the industry. Like me!

And that night I worked at the Town Hall and nearly collided with Joss Whedon (think the creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog and the upcoming Avengers movie) as he came inside for his sound check.

Being a volunteer at an event is such a different experience to attending, and I have a great time doing it.

Being a young adult fiction writer, I am attending some sessions this week during the schools program which feature young adult authors. This year is the first year I discovered that NON school people could attend these sessions too. Think of all the amazing speakers I've missed out on! But no longer.

In the next couple of posts I'll share what I learnt when Melina Marchetta (Looking for Alibrandi, On the Jellicoe Road, Finnikin on the Rock) discussed 'How I Write', and Chris Morphew (Zac Power, Phoenix Files) and Gabriel Lord (Conspiracy 365) talked about 'Action!'

I still have more sessions to attend, so stay tuned for those!

Sairz