Writing the Wrong Moment
Plus library and book challenge news
Hello Friends:
I saw a large cactus patch in bloom on a nature walk this week, but only because my son pointed it out. I was looking to the other side of the trail, minding the dogs. who didn’t need minding. Mistaking what to do in the moment.
The set up
When we misstep in our writing, we’re minding something that may very much matter, but doesn’t matter in the moment.
I’ve been reading a YA novel that tries very hard to do the things that writers are told to do: the protagonist is in crisis and she is evaluating her life and her relationship to the family she loves, but which isn’t serving her best interests. Her coming-of-age is relatable and realistic.
The problem
The novel moves back and forth in time before it settles into the present. This enables the first chapter to be something of a prologue. It is meant to create interest in the story as the protag makes her way back to college after being with her family. Something terrible has happened, but the protag doesn’t say what the terrible thing is (or things are, so it turns out). She is full of anguish. She circles around her family’s background and structure, her strict, religious immigrant parents. I’m sure the author mistakes this for suspense. But since we don’t yet know the protag and can’t imagine what has happened, we aren't invested. The longer this ‘suspense’ goes on, the more the novel drags.
The first chapter is also working mightily to be literary—images upon image, many unsuccessful at drawing the emotion that would justify their inclusion. If the first chapter had been cut entirely, the novel would have been better.
As the story goes on there are numerous info drops, some in unnatural dialogue. Think of the protag talking to her boyfriend and saying something like “You know my parents are strict and that the marriages in my family are arranged and that they wouldn’t approve of me going out with you.” All unnecessary. The stuff about the parents could have been woven into the story in a natural way.
Takeaways
If the first chapter can be cut without making the story unclear, cut it.
There has to be a reader reward in the first chapter. This doesn’t need to be a climatic scene of any sort (it is the beginning, after all). A solid reward comes when the protag has a problem and the reader knows the stakes involved in solving it.
Fine language needs a purpose. If it doesn’t have one, it devolves into purple prose.
The podcast from
repeatedly warns against starting in the wrong place. They have lots of good examples. Have a listen.This is peripheral, but it is good advice from literary agent Donald Maass about how to include imaginative detail so that it serves the story. Read the entire essay.
It would seem, then, that the keys to getting readers to imagine your story are sensory descriptive detail and emotional situations. To a large degree that’s true; however, there’s more to it. How strongly imaginative cues work also depends on the reader’s state of mind while reading.
I’d venture that every early draft of a novel starts in the wrong place. But writing is rewriting and distillation is good practice.
Recommended Reads
This post was on Substack’s weekly Reads, and it’s a topic I’m interested in and write about, so I was in. It made me think of a scene in my upcoming novel on escape from a cult. When the ‘prophet’ tells the protagonist “You lost your faith,” she responds “You took it.”
While many things influence kids’ reading (and are discussed in the article), this is one that I’ve found true in my own experience:
But others also pointed to the way reading is being taught to young children in an educational environment that gets more and more test-focused all the time. “I do not blame teachers for this,” said O’Sullivan, but the transformation of the reading curriculum means “there’s not a lot of time for discovery and enjoyment in reading.” She noted a change I, too, had noticed: Reading in the classroom has moved away from encouraging students to dive into a whole book and moved toward students reading excerpts and responding to them. “Even in elementary school, you read, you take a quiz, you get the points. You do a reading log, and you have to read so many minutes a day. It’s really taking a lot of the joy out of reading.”
Antiracism Summer Reading List
15 noteworthy recent releases handpicked by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project.
Library and book challenge news
‘The reason we can’t breathe’: Nashville Youth Poet Laureate takes on book bans and arming teachers Have a listen.
Girl Scout given Presidential Citation by Virginia Library Association for project on book bans
More happy news about Girl Scout Kate Lindley. I just can’t get enough of this story.
Girl Scout Kate Lindley, who has been vocal about the Hanover County Board of Supervisors’ recent “censorship” of her Gold Award recognition, has been recognized by the Virginia Library Association for her advocacy efforts.
Lindley was given a Girl Scout Gold Award for her project detailing her creation of “Banned Book Nooks” and a “Free-to-Read” app, the latter of which is designed to help users access banned books.
In her post this week,
includes the story of protesting the Huntington Beach City Council’s efforts to privatize the library.You’ll love this great cover for School Library Journal! Check it out: Beware Workarounds. Attempting to Appease Censors, Libraries Risk Compromising Values. | From the Editor
What Do Book Challenge Forms Look Like?
One reason that a single woman in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, was able to get 444 books immediately pulled from the school district’s middle and high school was a poorly written policy. The policy changed one year prior, and it stated that a submitted book challenge form would lead to the immediate removal of a book while it was being evaluated by the school district administration. That right there gave carte blanche for submitting forms to get the books banned and overwhelm the district.
Amid a three-year nationwide surge in book bans, 2024 began on a hopeful note for freedom-to-read advocates, with legal victories in book-banning lawsuits in Iowa, Florida, and Texas. But after some early successes, several cases are poised to enter a critical next phase. As the wheels of justice grind on, PW rounded up the status of some of the more closely watched book-banning suits.
As Fort Worth ISD returns most banned books to shelves, questions remain about book access
Book removals land OCR complaints for Florida, Georgia districts
Book removals in Georgia’s Cobb County School District and Florida’s Collier County School District created a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students and students of color, according to two complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Monday alleging Title IX and Title VI violations.
The complaints brought by the National Women’s Law Center against two of the largest school districts in Georgia and Florida claim book removals targeting LGBTQ+ and racial issues or written by LGBTQ+ or non-White authors have “impacted the ability of LGBTQIA+ students and students of color to feel safe and represented in their educations.”
The complaints also say the book censorship was predated by discriminatory comments from school board members, and that the firing of teachers who sought to foster diverse environments has created “a pall of fear over the educational environment for LGBTQIA+ students and students of color.”
NC Values Coalition calls on state lawmakers to ban some books from public school libraries
PFLAG Southern Pines believes Moore County Schools has gone too far in its enforcement of the new law. The group said the school district removed books that did not have explicit material but instead featured homosexual parents as characters.
"We cannot let these clear violations go unnoticed and unchallenged, because if we do, what's the next marginalized community that they're going to strike?" PFGLAG Southern Pines President Erica Street said.
The group has filed a Title IX federal complaint with the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
ALI VELSHI BANNED BOOK CLUB READS THE GIVER
Enjoy this interview of Lois Lowry by Ali Velshi (audio or video—both available)
What I’m Reading
Actually, I’m listening to Nein, Nein, Nein! : One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust by Jerry Stahl. I’m only about 20% in. Wonderfully strange stuff. Weirdly relatable dark humor. Smart look at (the surprising) way some people today view the Holocaust.
What I’m Watching
I’m still binging Big Love.
I saw the last episode of A Gentleman in Moscow this week. I found it complemented the novel in a satisfying way.
Happy Sunday!
I get some of my best tips second hand. A friend took a class in which Allison K Williams said, “give someone page 51 of your manuscript. If they know what’s going on, you don’t need the first 50 pages.” I think she’s probably right. So far it takes me to about draft 4 to see it at play in my own work.
I’m on exercise 16 of Donald Maass’ Breakout Novel Workbook. I keep telling people it’s like taking my novel to therapy. He’s forcing me to make characters experience the consequences of their baggage and take away their back-up options. Thank god there’s a ‘note’ at the end of Exercise 16 that says, “listen, if it seems like your novel has come unraveled- don’t worry! It’s gonna be fine.” I found this reassuring.
I dedicated my Friday evening reading binge to The Mortality of Dogs and Humans. Time spent in good company! Well done. 🐶🐾
Strong characters create the most tension. Something's always gonna happen. I want to know why