In Order to Write

reprint: Bras and Broomsticks by Sarah Mlynowski — book review

May 8th, 2008

Okay, so, it’s Friday and I am sitting in front of my computer having just gotten home from work where, at Borders ALL OVER the country they are honoring teachers by giving them an across the board (less for DVD’s) 25% off on purchases made today, tomorrow, and Sunday. This is the second one I’ve worked, this is not one of those days I want to work, and still, at the end of the day, I came away about 15 cents an hour richer.

Still, work is work is work is work. That is a long run on sentence that doesn’t really qualify as such; but then, I am recovering from having to deal with teachers all day. Teachers are inconsiderate and rude and they don’t give a golly-gosh-damn that people know it. On top of that our Borders had a couple of folk musicians playing in the café, they were loud, I wasn’t impressed, and I was happy to see the couple go.

Now for the fun of what I am doing: Another book review. I borrowed, yesterday, a copy of “Bras and Broomsticks” by Sarah Mlynowski. This is yet another young adult novel, though this time I was not attracted to two pumpkins being held in front of a balerina’s chest whilst she danced across egg shells (don’t think I added that last part in that review). Instead, I was drawn to the book by the name and the dust jacket which outlined a book about Rachel who has a sister named Miri, 14 and 12 respectively. They live with their divorced mother, dislike their divorced father’s fiancé, oh and Miri has recently discovered that she’s inherited the witch gene from her mother and now has the ability to cast spells.

The book was pretty good. Not too long. Like I said, I borrowed it last night and returned it today. However, regardless of the overall length the story was actually well done. Apparently Sarah Mlynowski has been writing professionally for several years now and has done a few books in the chick-lit category. This is her first foray into teen lit and covers several months in the life of Rachel, Miri, their mom, the STB, (Jennifer the soon to be step mother) and others.

Almost immediately the reader is dropped into the realm of magic as Rachel discovers that she is wearing a pair of green tennis shoes her mother told her she couldn’t buy. Thinking that her mother was making amends for… something, she borrows her friends, Tammy, cell phone and calls her mother who immediately interrupts Rachels plans to go hang with the “A-list” crowd at some pizza place. Rachel is a typical teenage girl who wants to be popular and feels that she isn’t for all the wrong reasons (like she has a flat chest, is a whiz at math, and her old best friend Jewel got into the A-crowd and forgot all about her). Upon hearing about the shoes Rachel’s mom tells her to come home so they can talk and she begins to imagine the worst.

As a counterpoint to Rachel is Miri. Miri is twelve, not in high school yet, doesn’t like the same things as Rachel, and doesn’t think the same way about popularity. She is outlined as taller with a better body, bigger breasts (that Rachel want), and now the responsibility of magic. Magic that is passed from mother to daughter but occasionally misses a child or a generation here and there (the mother is also a witch and chooses to live the life of an ordinary human because… well, the author really doesn’t tell us why). In short Miri is now being trained in magic by her mother and is instructed not to use magic for any reason until after the period of training is over.

Throw in some good Star Wars references, add a dash of 12 and 14 and puberty, a guy, a dance group with tryouts, and absolutely hating the STB and you have the mixture for magic, wish granting, and eventually disaster. Without giving away too much, the girls eventually cause their father to call of the wedding, Rachel gets on the team and then totally destroys the dance routine she was so wonderful at, and Miri is reminded of the adage, “With great power comes great responsibility.” (That’s from Spiderman in case anyone is interested and I am formulating in my mind a piece on the problems with comic books that I plan to write.)

Anyway, this was a really good book. I was impressed with the way it was written, all first person and all from the perspective of Rachel - and when the author decides she needs to add in the STB’s thoughts or Miri’s then it’s a spell gone horribly wrong that tells us what they are really thinking. The book is, at the same time, funny and interesting and worth picking up if you have about 16 extra dollors… or waiting for if you don’t want to spend that much to get the hardcover.

reprinted from sw-c.com

Posted in Book Reviews, Sarah Mlynowski, reprint | 1 Comment »

Spells and Sleepingbags by Sarah Mlynowski — review

May 6th, 2008

I like to read YA novels. They are often good, with amazing writing, well-structured stories, and characters that are recognizable and well developed. With that in mind, about once a year, I’ve read another installment of Sarah Mlynowski’s series of books Magic in Manhattan series. Previous books in the series are: Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses.

Essentially, this is a series of books about a teen girl, Rachel, her younger sister, and their mother and life after divorce with a little bit of magic thrown in, just for good measure. Before reading the series, or even the first book (Bras and Broomsticks) you should know that Rachel is shallow, self-centered, egocentric, complains about her lot(s) in life, and wants to see her parents back together. On top of that, her younger sister, by two years, develops magical abilities in the first book, leaving Rachel as a normal human being; and Rachel uses Miri (her sister) to get what she wants.

The first two books (Bras and Broomsticks and Frogs and French Kisses) cover Miri’s growth in magic and Rachel trying, very hard, to spell, trick, of flirt her way into her main crush’s heart, aka Raf. On top of Miri casting a spell (difficulty determined by number of brooms 1 broom is easy, 5 brooms is extremely difficult) that allows Rachel to dance (she can’t normally) causes Raf’s brother Wil to fall in love with her, and pretty much messes up everything – because magic has its costs.

One of the conceits that Mlynowski uses, in these books, for magic is that a request for something through magic takes that thing (say a pretty dress) from somewhere, taking something you have (say, the clothes you are wearing right now). Your item is deposited wherever the object you wanted it taken from and people are confused.

At the end of the previous book, Rachel discovers that she has the magical gift-slash-talent as well when she stops it from raining on a moved Senior Prom which leaves the reader dangling as they wait for the next book to come out.

In Spells and Sleepingbags, Rachel and Miri continue on with their lives. It is the summer after Rachel’s Freshman year of high school, and they have been sent to spend their summer at a sleep away camp called Camp Wood Lake. This is where Wil, Raf, and their older brother all go for the summer, with Wil and the oldest brother working as camp counselors. The outcome, Rachel has determined to fix her mistakes in the last book and finally hook up with Raf.

The problem in the book, though, is that Mlynowski spends an inordinate amount of time reinforcing that Rachel is very shallow and self-centered with her looking, immediately, for a new BFF (best friend forever, note, BFF’s are best friends forever) and finding one, immediately, on the bus to Camp Wood Lake. What she does not do is set up the story she is trying to tell. Instead, she sets up the story that she never bothers to tell. As a result, reading the first eighth to a quarter of the book ended up being a bit tiresome. The same was true in her second book as well (I recall really enjoying the setup in the first book).

As a reader you have to get almost to the end of the book before you actually get to the plot of the book. Sure, there are elements and hints toward where Mlynowski is attempting to take the story; but she never actually sets it up. Instead, we deal with Rachel and her vacuous nature while she attempts to get a new boyfriend and not be the girl all the other girls pick on.

Enter the dragon, very quickly, Mlynowski hints at Liana, the proposed antagonist to the story. The problem with Liana is that she has such a small role in the book until (nearly) the very end, and Mlynowski gets rid of Rachel’s new BFF in a bass-akward way that it felt rushed and forced. Like the three Star Wars prequel movies. George Lucas, in all his wisdom, introduced the world to a kid named Anni. This, by the by, was the proto-Darth Vadar. The problem with the Prequel movies is that Lucas waited until the third movie to tell all three movies he wanted to tell. No one really cares about Anni. People did care about Anakin Skywalker and how he was already a good pilot when Obi Wan Kenobi first met him and how, at that stage in life, he rose to prominence and then fell from grace. Episode 3 should’ve been broken into three parts and told as three different movies.

Like Star Wars, Mlynowski waits until the end of the story to introduce what she is trying to accomplish. Liana wants to be Rachel. Therefore, Liana has to make Rachel’s life so hideous that Rachel doesn’t want it anymore. However, this is done, rather poorly, by keeping Rachel from kissing Raf and in the end having Miri choose Liana over Rachel. Had Mlynowski provided the proper clues in the beginning of the book, Alison is potentially the bad guy or Liana is on the bus already when Rachel gets on; Liana introduces herself as Rachel and Miri’s cousin early on; events are made to look like coincidences rather than deliberate attacks on Rachel; Rachel and Miri’s relationship begins to deteriorate slowly; and Rachel has to deal with her new powers all the time knowing who Liana really is makes a more compelling story.

OR, Mlynowski was pretty desperate to get Liana and Rachel to trade bodies and as a result, having Rachel accept that in response to the rebuff she feels from Raf as a result of her dating Wil (previous book) and then spending the book in Liana’s body with Miri not noticing and, as a subplot, trying to figure out what is going on with Liana and Rachel, everyone already knowing that Liana is their cousin, would’ve also been a more compelling story and more to the point of what Mlynowski may have been trying to accomplish.

The book took me about a quarter to get into and start enjoying what I was reading. I picked Liana out of the crowd as the bad egg from the beginning and as a witch and as a cousin. The book was not groundbreaking, it was interesting, but it didn’t do enough in the beginning to cause me to really get a grasp on where the author was taking the reader; and it felt like Mlynowski was trying very hard to use her setup from book one all the way through book three… and her dialogue felt more kitschy than catchy and more adult than teenager. Plus, honestly, with all the people I talk to and all the people I associate with of all age levels, I don’t think (outside of a cellphone commercial) I’ve ever actually heard any girl refer to another girl as a BFF or multiple girls all referring to their group as BFF’s.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the next book… through, there is a teaser for it at the end of the Spells and Sleepingbags and I am a little worried it will ultimately end up more of the same.

Posted in Book Reviews, Sarah Mlynowski | 1 Comment »

Working Through the Concept - part III

May 3rd, 2008

Gathering the idea together is important.

What does this mean? Let’s take another look at Cassandra West:

Cassandra is a young girl who is pulled out of her body and placed into the body of an older woman… herself, ten or twenty years older.

This is an idea. And it is where the idea for Cassandra West started. But it is not a significant plot description about what the stories (and book) is about or where Cassandra will end up. Because this is true, understanding that there is more to an idea than merely the nexus that begins the formation of a story is essential… and then gathering the parts of that story together in a way that makes sense to you is also important.

Because this has been discussed before, I have shared aspects of the brainstorming idea that comes with this story. There are multiple characters:

• Thomas - horse, familiar
• The Reverend Bubbha Thomas - pastor
• Roy Bean - western judge, mage
• Cassandra’s father - ???
• Cassandra’s mother - normal human being, might’ve been a prostitute
• Housekeeper,
• various witches, wizards
• and etc.

Characters help me to build around the concept. If I have a central character (protagonist) and supporting characters including an antagonist, then I can begin to see how various parts of my idea are going to come together to form the greater story. Thomas is important, in part, because he is also the king of all horses. He and Cassandra have a relationship that has lasted for a long, long time. The outcome is that when Cassandra is pulled into her adult body, Thomas is there waiting for her.

One question that was asked, in an early iteration of the original Cassandra West story was, “Does this story deal with time travel?”

The answer to that question is no. Time is static in this universe, Cassandra is taken from her 11 year old body and placed into her older body. The date has not changed. One result of this is that Cassandra is constantly trying to get back to her home. However, (story element) she cannot cross a certain river in her adult body and must find another way to return home.

Since I know that Cassandra will repeatedly deal with different characters, as well as the ramifications of her being made older through magic, her father’s involvement in things, who the housekeepers in her parent’s house are/were, and other aspects to the story, having gathered a cast of characters that all have different responsibilities helps me focus on the idea of the story and to see if it begins to tell me different things about the background and history of the world, the other indigenous peoples, other events that might be taking place, and more.

Though the Cassandra West story is, in part, character driven, the story is more plot driven which means gathering ideas about plot elements or points to the story are also essential. Knowing what needs to happen at different points of the overarching story helps to determine what is happening now and what will be happening in a chapter or two.

Continued next week.

Part One: Working Through the Concept
Part Two: Working Through the Concept - part II

Posted in Cassandra West, Characters, On Writing, act of writing | No Comments »

Poison Sleep by T.A. Pratt - review

April 30th, 2008

T.A. Pratt (a.k.a. Tim Pratt) is writing a series of four books. The first, Blood Engines, which is now followed up by Poison Sleep. You can read the previous review here or the first chapter of Blood Engines here.

Poison Sleep follow Pratt’s character Marla Mason, the chief witch of the city of Felport. Pratt’s first book takes place in San Francisco as Marla and her partner Rondeau are there attempting to find the Cornerstone, an extremely magical piece of stone that can change or alter reality. She needs this to… it doesn’t matter. Read the book, the previous review, or the first chapter.

T.A. Pratt follows up Blood Engine with Poison Sleep. This book is set about two months after the first and takes place in Felport. Instead of dealing with a crazed magician’s… oh wait, dealing with more crazed magicians, Marla begins the book by racing to a hospital for the magically insane. One of the craziest of the witches in the hospital escaped from her cell and was trying to escape. As a result, another patient woke up and disappeared, leaving orange blossoms behind and a giant hole in the wall.

Marla returns to Felport (the criminally insane and patients are outside of the city) realizing that she needs to interview and hire a Love Talker, needs to find an assistant who can keep her life in order, and has to take care of Susan Wellstone’s holdings in the city (see previous book for why), divvying them up among the other leading witches and wizards. However, the story is never as simple as what needs to be done. The escaped patient, Genevieve, has created a reality that is alongside the one Marla lives in. One of the problems that Marla encounters is that people, ordinaries, are being pulled into her world.

The outcome is… well, less than I expected.

I started reading Pratt through his book The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. I fell in love with this book and looked forward to reading more of his work. As a result, I’ve read some of his short stories and then, excitedly, picked up Blood Engine. My chief criticism of the previous book was the use of sex and sexuality to illustrate the movement in the book. Though I didn’t mind reading through that, the addition of that material seemed… out of place with the book as a whole. However, knowing that information and some of the details added in the first book allows the reader to realize backstory with Marla and, even though not something I would’ve added to the book, allows a greater understanding of the character.

As a result of Rangergirl and Blood Engines I was excited to see what would happen next… especially when you move Marla out of San Francisco and back into her base of operations: Felport. The outcome was less than I was expecting. Rangergirl was a really good story that caught my attention and suggested that Pratt was going somewhere. Blood Engine carried this forward buy setting up the potential for a really good series of books. Poison Sleep, though, doesn’t match up to the previous two books. Granted, you read a book for the author, and you read a story to see what commentary the author will make; and Pratt does tell a good story, but in this case I wonder if this was a good story poorly told or a poor story told exceptionally well.

Truth told, I didn’t feel as though this was a continuation of the Marla Mason stories. Yes, I expect to read the  next two books (planned) in the series and look forward to their coming out; but I don’t think that Pratt told an exceptionally compelling story in this book. The saddest part of the book, to me, was the rather … predictable and odd way the story ended. I don’t think that the resolution to the story matched the buildup to the end. Sure, Pratt is writing stories where the fate of Felport - and by extension the world - is in jeopardy; but on the flipside of that, at no time did I really feel like the story had created enough conflict or danger where the world (or Felport) might actually be in danger.

I think that Pratt needs to write a more compelling story where he either deals with Marla (protagonist) in danger and the depth of the story and all action surrounding the ancillary characters, deals with her being in mortal danger. Otherwise, the world affecting danger should actually deal with the potential of actual world destruction.

Truth told, I appreciate Pratt as a writer and look forward to reading the next book in the series, Dead Reign.

Posted in Authors, Book Reviews, Books in Scrutiny, T.A. Pratt | No Comments »

Working Through the Concept - part II

April 26th, 2008

previous entry — part I

Authors will tell you that finding an idea is not the hard part - rather, working through the idea is the hardest part in writing a book or story.

Writing a book is a long, lonely, and arduous task. Some people have the ability to do this process very quickly, Stephen King, T.A. Pratt, Orson Scott Card, and others. However, this is merely the process of writing and not determining whether or not the concept is worth working through.

Getting an idea is relatively simple.

You can get the idea walking down the street. For me, the ideas I am working through started in various ways. Cassandra West came (in part) as a result of reading The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. What that book did was return me to a city I really enjoyed living in in my early twenties, and to show me the opportunities of writing sword and sorcery stories set in the Old West. The concept is relatively easy to come by, though as I (occasionally) work through the various aspects of the stories, I find new things about Cassandra West, the world she lives in, the various towns she deals with, and the people she comes in contact with. One of the coolest additions to the story came, in part, out of a conversation with my wife, named, The Reverend Bubbha Thomas.

However, characters and settings don’t a story make. You have to have a reason for those characters to be in those settings and for everything to work together in a way that allows the final product to be a compelling story. The reason you read a book is in part because you enjoy how the writer tells stories; and in part because you want to see what the author has to say about a particular subject. In many cases, even candy stories, mass market publications (old dime store novels), have something to say about some subject.

Because subject matter is (relatively) important, publishers often deal with specific subject matter. This is called genre. The popular genres are: Science Fiction and Fantasy, Romance, Thriller, Mystery, General Fiction, and more. Each of these subject’s can be divided even further. Sci-Fi and Fantasy are a part of Speculative Fiction. General Fiction also includes Literature as well as Candy Lit.

This is important because, as an author, you will be writing toward a specific audience. That audience will be reading toward a specific theme. And that theme will describe what genre you are writing in. Granted, a Romance can deal with multiple other themes, fantasy, sword and sorcery, and others, but the main theme of the story is romance and love.

Having the theme of the story, what it deals with, helps determine how you will work through the concept.

Posted in Cassandra West, Coherence, General Entries, On Writing, Orson Scott Card, Plot, Stephen King, T.A. Pratt, concept | No Comments »