Purple Prose:
edgy YA

Today, I’m continuing from where I left off on Monday’s post with the analysis of the YA novel Forbidden. Hopefully the post will give you something to think about as you write your next project (regardless of the genre).

Here's the short blurb to remind you of the premise:

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen, gorgeous, and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Foreshadowing

Throughout the story, both Maya and Lochan acknowledge that what they are doing is wrong. They struggle to figure out how to make things works without hurting anyone. Their major concern is what it will do to their family. At one point, Lochan does research on the laws surrounding incest, especially consensual incest, which is important for his decision at the climax. It shows you what they are up against.

Theme

Every scene in the book was tightly woven to the themes of sacrifice and family and love. The themes provided the forward momentum to the book and helped remove the Ewww factor. Had they not been there, or only happened randomly, the story wouldn’t have been so powerful. Every decision the two teens made were based on these three themes.

Climax

If you’re planning to read the book, and I highly recommend it, you might want to skip this section due to spoilers [alert].

Source

In the climax, Maya and Lochan decide to go all the way. Until now, they had been fighting it, knowing it’s wrong. They had only been kissing and fooling around. But their mother, who wasn’t supposed to be able to get into the house, comes home after finding out what was going on between them. She naturally freaks out and calls the police.

Knowing that he and Maya could end up in jail for what they did, which means the younger kids would be taken away by social services and separated, Lochan makes it look like he forced his sister to consent to their sexual relationship. He even goes as far as to hit her so that it looks like he was the abuser and she was the victim. He knows he’ll end up going to prison for a long time, but the sacrifice is worth it to save Maya and their siblings.

But then things go horrible wrong, and Maya tells the police it was consensual, so that Lochan’s prison sentence will be reduced. But this means Maya can be charged and would face a two-year prison sentence. Lochan makes one more sacrifice for his family. He commits suicide. With him dead, Maya can’t be charged and the family won’t be destroyed more than it already has been.

Heartbroken, Maya is ready to kill herself since she can’t live without Lochan, but her five-year-old sister says something that makes Maya realize that killing herself would make Lochan’s sacrifice pointless.

End of spoiler alert

Source

As you can see from this analysis, there was not one element that made this story powerful. It was the combination of these five elements, along with a strong plot, that made this a book I couldn’t stop thinking about long after I finished it.

What book has had the same affect on you? What was it about the book that kept you thinking about it long after you read the last page?

(Why the pictures of the cute bunnies? Because every time I think of the book and the urge to cry hits, I chant, “Fuzzy bunny, fuzzy bunny, fuzzy bunny.” It works every time. *grins*)

Last summer, I bought the YA novel Forbidden, mostly out of curiosity, but then didn’t have the guts to read it:

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen, gorgeous, and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

First, there was the Ewwww factor, which made me wonder why I bought the book in the first place. Second, based on the full blurb, I knew there wasn’t going to be a happily-ever-after ending, and those are the ones I prefer.

But last week I decided to finally read the book, and ended up loving it. The problem is I couldn’t stop thinking about it once I was finished. I started to wonder, when I wasn’t sobbing, what made it one of my favorite books, and how could I write such a brilliant story, too. A story that left me an emotional wreck long after I finished reading it. So, I analyzed it with the hopes of applying what I learned to future projects.

Characters You Ache For

This book is told from both the point of view of Lochan and Maya. They are the oldest of five children (the youngest is only five years old). Their father left to be with another woman when Lochan was twelve years old. Their mother turned to alcohol and slowly started to distance herself from their lives. And at one point in the book, she is no longer living with the children. So right away, you empathize with the characters due to the strong backstory.

In addition to raising their siblings, Lochan and Maya do everything possible to ensure social services don’t find out about their situation. If it’s discovered their mother has abandoned them, then their family will be torn apart. This powerful backstory explains why Lochan and Maya never felt like they were siblings, and it provides the motivation behind what happens in the climax. Like the two characters, you don’t see them as sibling, but rather two individuals who fell in love.

Great Writing

But the void yawns open like a cavern inside my chest. I feel so damn lonely all the time. Even though I’m surrounded by pupils, there is this invisible screen between us, and behind the glass wall I am screaming—screaming in my own silence, screaming to be noticed, to be befriended, to be liked.(Lochan’s pov)

The writing in Forbidden is beautiful and the emotion intense. Lochan is extremely shy, to the point that he has anxiety attacks when called on in class. This means he’s treated like the class weirdo. You feel his pain, which makes you want to keep reading.

The writing also helps the reader feel Maya’s and Lochan’s pain as they struggle with their love for each other when they know it’s wrong, and when they make sacrifices to keep their family together, while most of their peers are out having fun and being normal teens. And you feel their pain when their secret is discovered. The writing is rich with symbolism and imagery but is true to who they are as individuals. It’s compelling and makes for a great page turner—even when you’re afraid to turn the next page.

Do you strive to write a book that makes people think about it long after they’ve finished reading it? Have you analyzed a book to see how the author achieved this goal?

Part Two of the post will be go up Wednesday. And then you'll see why the book affected me.

I have a special guest today who has just released her Young Adult novel, Every Little Piece. I’ve already read the book and loved it. I loved it so much, I ignored my writing just so I could keep reading Kate’s book. So naturally I was thrilled when she said she would write a guest post. Take it away Kate . . . .

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As writers, we’ve all heard over and over to follow the rules. They help us when we’re writing our first manuscript…or second and third.

Rules such as don’t ever describe a character by having him/her look in a mirror, start with action but not so into the action that readers are confused, and follow story structure.

Rules are good.

I suggest following them. Most of the time.

There’s also a time to experiment. I had finished one project, and I needed something new and different. When I sat down to write Every Little Piece, I had a vague idea of where the story was going. I wanted an event and then a before and after. I wanted to show two people in a relationship dealing with their past.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have a solid outline. I told myself that I was willing to write thirty thousand words just for the sake of backstory. I didn’t worry about turning points.

I just wrote the story.

Of course, I had reshaping, revising, rewriting to complete after. I cut scenes. I refined the writing. I fleshed out turning points that came naturally.

But I let go of everything when writing this story. Sometimes it’s good to follow those rules. It’s good to follow perfect story structure.

But sometimes, it’s good just to let go of everything and just write the story from your heart.

Blurb:

Secrets never stay in the past.

The night before high school graduation changes everything. Lies are told. Mistakes are made. Secrets tucked away. Lives are changed in the span of a few hours.

A year later, Haley is still reeling, numb with the constant ache of guilt. She's in a place she never expected to be: lost without her friends and Seth. Until he enters her life again, dredging up everything she's trying to forget. Everything about that night.

Seth returns to his hometown determined to share his truth, his side of the story. He desperately needs to make things right with Haley, even if it means losing her forever. Because the truth will ruin any chance of her ever loving him again.

Except neither of them are prepared for the shock of what really happened the night before graduation.

Goodreads~ Amazon~ Barnes and Noble

There’s still time to sign up for the Every Little Piece Book Blitz Tour with Xpresso Tours starting May 6th!

Thanks so much Stina for your support and letting me take over your blog!

Kate Ashton @kateashton01 is the author of the contemporary mature YA Every Little Piece. She writes about relationships and love, heartbreak and healing. And everything in between.

©Stina Lindenblatt

There’s a lot of talk on the blogs about author branding, but is branding really necessary when you’re unpublished? According to agent Sarah LaPolla: Just focus on writing your books. I guess my "branding" advice in a more general sense is to publish within the same genre and age group for at least 3 books. That's a smaller way to create a "brand." If you write three YA thrillers, that’s your brand. If you write edgy YA novels in verse (like Ellen Hopkins), that’s your brand. If you write a YA contemporary, a YA paranormal, and a YA dystopian, you don’t have a brand unless there is a common denominator between them.

One way to figure out the common denominator is pin down what specially calls to you in the books you love. Step two is write what you know. For example, as many of you know, I struggled with being a cutter when I was in my early twenties. I also participated in some other risky behaviors to try to cope with the emotional pain. No one knew I was struggling. On the outside I was a normal girl who studied hard at university, worked part time in two fitness centers (which were major training facilities for high calibre athletes), spent time in Finland, and had lots of friends. Sounds great, huh? It was, but on the inside I was still broken.

Now flash forward. What books do I love to read? YA novels like those by Ellen Hopkins (Impulse, Perfect), Sarah Fine (Sanctum), Katie McGarry (Pushing the Limits). These books start out with broken characters who heal as the story progresses. Plus, these books all have romance in them. These are the types of stories I love to write. Why? Because I write what I know and I write what calls to me. This is my author brand. I’m writing in several different genres (YA contemporary, YA horror, YA suspense), but all three have the same thing in common. No, I’m not published yet, but knowing what types of stories and characters I love to write about, guides me when I start a new WIP. Yes, I could write something completely different, but I don’t.

What about you? Have you discovered your author brand yet? Or are you still figuring out the types of stories you love to read and write the most?

For more information on YA author branding, the YARWA (YA chapter of the Romance Writers of America) is offering an online workshop September 10-20^th. Check their website for more info.

Last week, Heather Howland (managing editor from Entangled Publishing) conducted an amazing online workshop. Here are some key points she stressed when writing kissing or sex scenes in YA stories:

• Avoid the cliches we are now seeing A LOT in YA stories. For example, the tugging of the lower lip during the kiss. Many of these things are found in adult novels and are not true to the teen experience. Heather rolls her eyes whenever she reads them in manuscripts. She’s probably not the only one.

• It’s all about the emotions. With adult novels, there’s more emphasis on the mechanics of the kiss or sex or everything in between. Not so with the teen experience. Make sure you have the visceral reactions (no clichés please) and lots of introspection. The focus should be on the introspection (something I still need to work on) and not on the choreography.

• Avoid being graphic with the naming of body parts (I can’t list them here because this is a PG-rated blog, but you get the idea). There are incidences when it’s okay, but this is when the character is viewing the act in a clinical sense. Most of the time, you want to avoid this. Examples used were Forget Me by Jennifer Ecols and The Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky.

• Write for teens. Don’t write steamy to make adult readers happy. Remember, the teen experience varies when it comes to sex. Someone who has never gone that far might be uncomfortable if you get too descriptive.

• Study how other authors do it (well). Below are a few of the books Heather used excerpts from to demonstrate her points. In the lecture (which I can’t do here), she explained why each excerpt worked.

If you have a chance to take a workshop from Heather (like Sex in YA), I highly recommend it. She’s a great instructor. Someone had a question about rape in YA, and Heather delayed her originally scheduled lesson to post on the topic. She also accepted anonymous excerpts from our WIPs and gave feedback on them. That alone made the course worth it. We all learned a lot from reading her explanations on why things worked and why they didn’t.

What cliches are you tired of seeing in YA or romance?

(This workshop was offered through YARWA, the YA chapter of the RWA).

(Geez, I’m dreading to see what google search words bring people to my blog now!)

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Update on the course I mentioned last week: Students will be refunded since the instructor is unable to finish the course due to health issues. Hopefully she gets better soon.

I’ve seen this question a lot on the internet lately: Why do you write [fill in the blank] novels? Good question. What is it that calls to you to write a certain genre?

I could answer this like many YA writers do by saying I love writing about the Firsts. First kiss. First boyfriend. First taste of freedom. But this is the real reason I write it . . . .

You go to the hiding place in your room where you’ve stashed the knife, its blade seductively sharp. No one will notice, it reminds you. You’re perfectly safe.

You pull up the sleeve of your long-sleeved t-shirt, and find an empty spot. Or maybe, like a diabetic readying herself for her insulin shot, you search for another site. One less used. Maybe your thigh.

With pressure, you draw the blade across your skin, relishing the stinging bite. The physical pain is welcomed. Wanted. Craved. Anything to numb the other pain. The one you’ve cleverly hidden from your friends and family. They don’t know. So easily fooled.

Your heart sinks. There’s nothing more than a deep impression. Not enough to draw blood. You try again, this time a little harder. By the time you’ve finished, pinprick-sized drops of blood peak from the first attempt. Oh, well, guess you didn’t have to do it twice after all. Now you have two cuts to deal with.

Deep down you know what you’re doing is wrong, but you can’t help yourself. The release you feel afterwards is worth it. And sure, writing GUYS ARE ASSHOLES in permanent ink might be a more effective reminder. But that would be harder to explain than the cuts. At least with the cuts you can lie. You can tell people a branch scratched you. The thicker ones you can explain happened while canoeing. But better yet, you don’t let people see them in the first place. Especially while they’re healing.

I wasn’t a teen when this became a bitter part of my reality, but I was pretty close to it. I was in university at the time. I thought I was the only person who did this. I had no idea until a few years ago that there was even a name for it. No one talked about it. It was never mentioned in any of the books I read. Sure, there were books that talked about suicide, but these were adult novels. And cutting is NOT the same as entertaining suicidal thoughts and acting on them. Not even close.

Back when I was a teen, there were no YA stories about cutting, rape, suicide, depression, eating disorders, drugs. There were no novels that reached out to give hope to those going through these realities, to show them that there was help available, that they weren’t alone. That there were other teens dealing with the same issues.

Some people think these topics (including sex) should be excluded from YA novels. If we don’t talk about them, teens won’t do them. But that’s not true. When I was a teen, books didn’t talk about these things, but teens still did them. To me, the role of a YA writer is to reach out to a teen who’s struggling with an issue in her life (or knows someone who is going through the same thing). Maybe not necessarily these big issues. There are many smaller ones that most teens face that are no less important to them and that make great stories, including the first kiss, first boyfriend, betrayal by the best friend.

So, why do I write and read YA? For the firsts. For the raw honesty and emotion. And let’s face it, for the hot guys (the ones who are sweet and endearing).

Question:

Why do you write the genre(s) that you’re writing?

Or

How do you feel about these tougher issues being deal with in YA novels?

(Notes: 1. Okay, before you all freak out on me. That dark point in my life is over. Fortunately, I was eventually able to heal, and have since learned different coping mechanisms to deal with stress and emotional pain. 2. Thank you, Sarah Fine, for blogging about cutting and the YA novel, Willow, both which were the inspiration for this post. )

As I pointed out yesterday, one of the things I loved about Perfect Chemistry and Rules of Attraction is how Simone Elkeles used Mexican slangs in the dialogue and inner thoughts.

Because my main character’s best friend is Mexican, I decided to do the same thing as Simone, but not quite to the same degree. For starters, the Spanish used in Perfect Chemistry was predominantly swearing, words that would leave your grandmother blushing, or terms of endearment. Instead, I decided to use only a few words and phrases. Plus, the best friend is only in a handful of scenes.

When you use foreign slangs, you have to be careful. You can’t take a dictionary and translate your English phrase word for word into the other language. You might be creating a sentence that means something different to what you intended. And the results might be very embarrassing.

My two youngest kids are in a Spanish bilingual program at school. I asked my daughter’s kindergartner teacher about some of the phrases I used, to make sure they were correct. One I especially wanted to know was ‘Está muy caliente’, which in English translates to ‘he’s very hot’. Or does it?

My daughter’s teacher said I could use the term, so I was surprised when I read the following in Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles:

She flashes me a sexy smile and leans closer. “Estás muy caliente.” I think she just called me hot. That’s not the way we say it in Meh-hee-co, but I get the idea.

Whoa, I thought. Then what does it mean? I spent the next hour, online, pouring through idioms to find out what it meant in Mexico. Okay, so here’s the part where I used the phrase in my novel. The italicized phrase is the proper translation of it

“You should definitely give Aaron a chance. He’s cute. Very horny.” She started counting his attributes on her fingers.

Yep, you can stop laughing now. That’s definitely not what my character wanted to say.

So, when you want to add foreign slangs in your story, make sure you check out a foreign slang dictionary specific to the country your character is from. Remember, idioms used in England can be very different to those used in Canada or the US. The same is true for Spanish idioms spoken in Mexico compared to those spoken in Spain. Also, any time you use a foreign language in your story (whether it’s a word or a phrase), it’s italicized.

Has anyone else used foreign slangs in their stories? Hopefully you didn’t make the same mistake as me.

As some of you know, I’m currently enrolled in two writer’s workshops through Writer’s Digest. For one of my recent assignments, I had to submit 1,000 words from my novel in which I had complicated my main character’s path to achieving her goal.

The excerpt I chose involved my main character, Calleigh, who was desperately searching for her friend and potential love interest, Aaron. He was planning to show up at the Fourth of July party on the beach but never did. Calleigh becomes worried for good reason. The excerpt begins with Calleigh finding him in the forest alone and unconscious. Beside him is an empty bottle of whiskey. Her cell phone battery went dead (of course) while she was looking for him. It’s a forty-five minute drive to the nearby town. And this is a forest, which means, you know, hungry animals like black bears and cougars might be searching for their next meal.

Because it’s impossible for Calleigh to drag Aaron to her car—it’s a long hike—she has only two choices: stay with him or drive back to town to get help. If she leaves, he could stop breathing and die. She decides to stay. The added bonus is that she used to be a lifeguard so she knows CPR. Also, it’s a popular hiking spot, so someone will show up the next day and can help them if necessary.

My instructor had some concerns, but they weren’t a big deal because I had dealt with them before the excerpt, only she didn’t know that. The problem came when I checked out the feedback from my classmates. One wrote: I worry that this part of your book might stir up some flack w/parents re: Calleigh not seeking help in a potentially deadly situation.

Now my first, second, and third response was great! Bring it on. One of the reasons I wrote Lost in a Heartbeat was to generate discussion among teenage girls, and hopefully reach out to someone who’s suffering through something similar to what Calleigh went through. If parents get upset about aspects of the story, such as the scene dealing with alcohol poisoning, then that’s a good thing. Maybe that will lead to a discussion within the family and school setting about the warnings signs of alcohol poisoning and what to do if you suspect it. Too many students have died because no one helped them when they passed out at a party. No one checked to make sure they were okay.

So here’s my question for you: Should writers of YA novels write stories that avoid upsetting parents, even if it means missing the chance of helping just one teen going through the same issue as our character? Or should we write realistic stories that deal with issues that are important to teens regardless of how some parents might react?

Now for some contest news. In case you haven't heard, and I'm sure every blogging writer in the blogosphere has, Sarah Wylie is having a contest to celebrate the sale of her novel. And the prizes are awesome. *runs off to enter*.