YA Week kicks off with Rosemary Clement-Moore
Thanks for letting me play in your blog, Lucienne. I was working on a great post for you, about things I love in books. I had a list going, one that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s read my books, and it went something like this:
“Random and Subjective Things I Love in Books.”
1. Plucky and resourceful characters. (But not too perky or perfect. No Mary Sues need apply.)
2. Snappy repartee and witty wordplay. (Smart, but not flippant.)
3. A world where the fantastic is side by side with the realistic stuff. One that makes you wonder if your chemistry teacher is brewing spells in the lab after school, or if your neighbor's “plaster” gnomes are the reason your garden tools go missing.
4. A romance between a couple who deserves each other, good and bad. Especially if they spar and resist their attraction (with lots of item #2) but then have to team up to solve the story problem, and eventually admit they really loooooove each other.
Not surprisingly, most of those are trends in my own books. (I mean, if you don't want to read your own work, no one else will, either.) But #5... not only does it not fit, I'm not even sure I want to confess it to you.
You see, I have a ridiculous love for the old trope where the heroine has to disguise herself as a boy for one reason or another. The obvious example is the movie Mulan, but when in my dad’s old westerns (which I read, since I read everything in the house), there were an awful lot of girls who had to disguise themselves to hunt down a bandit/gunslinger/crooked sheriff, usually to avenge their fathers.
So I gave some thought to why I enjoy this cliché so much. One, it’s a character bucking the system, to do what needs to be done (see item #1, pluck and resourcefulness). But it’s not just about cross-dressing to play with the boys. In these stories, the heroine changes her outer image to discover the person that she is inside. In settings where there are limits placed on what women can do, when the heroine frees herself from those strictures by putting on men’s clothes, she also frees herself to find her true strengths, not just the ones expected of her because of her gender.
Broadening the scope a bit, the same could be said for an aristocratic character who leaves the protection of mansion and has to live the way the other half lives. Or flip that, and take the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story, where the heroine is outwardly transformed into a lady, and has to find the fortitude to better herself inside.
Or maybe it’s a literal transformation, like the fashionista who becomes a vampire and has to think about more than the latest trend in shoes. By changing her metaphorical clothes, she finds out her true strengths.
I guess that’s why I write YA. I’m attracted to stories where the character has to find her true strength. Her “superpower” is how my character Maggie Quinn would put it. I write in a fantasy setting, but it doesn’t have to be a literal superpower. It’s finding that inner strength or skill that the character is going to use to save her world--the whole world, or her small piece of it.
So, what about you? Whether it’s a well worn cliché or an element that always draws you in, what do you love in a book? It doesn’t have to be deep or thematic or literary. (Don’t let me navel gazing fool you. I’m really just trying to justify my rather embarrassing un-feminist love for the girl-in-boy’s clothes trope!)
“Random and Subjective Things I Love in Books.”
1. Plucky and resourceful characters. (But not too perky or perfect. No Mary Sues need apply.)
2. Snappy repartee and witty wordplay. (Smart, but not flippant.)
3. A world where the fantastic is side by side with the realistic stuff. One that makes you wonder if your chemistry teacher is brewing spells in the lab after school, or if your neighbor's “plaster” gnomes are the reason your garden tools go missing.
4. A romance between a couple who deserves each other, good and bad. Especially if they spar and resist their attraction (with lots of item #2) but then have to team up to solve the story problem, and eventually admit they really loooooove each other.
Not surprisingly, most of those are trends in my own books. (I mean, if you don't want to read your own work, no one else will, either.) But #5... not only does it not fit, I'm not even sure I want to confess it to you.
You see, I have a ridiculous love for the old trope where the heroine has to disguise herself as a boy for one reason or another. The obvious example is the movie Mulan, but when in my dad’s old westerns (which I read, since I read everything in the house), there were an awful lot of girls who had to disguise themselves to hunt down a bandit/gunslinger/crooked sheriff, usually to avenge their fathers.
So I gave some thought to why I enjoy this cliché so much. One, it’s a character bucking the system, to do what needs to be done (see item #1, pluck and resourcefulness). But it’s not just about cross-dressing to play with the boys. In these stories, the heroine changes her outer image to discover the person that she is inside. In settings where there are limits placed on what women can do, when the heroine frees herself from those strictures by putting on men’s clothes, she also frees herself to find her true strengths, not just the ones expected of her because of her gender.
Broadening the scope a bit, the same could be said for an aristocratic character who leaves the protection of mansion and has to live the way the other half lives. Or flip that, and take the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story, where the heroine is outwardly transformed into a lady, and has to find the fortitude to better herself inside.
Or maybe it’s a literal transformation, like the fashionista who becomes a vampire and has to think about more than the latest trend in shoes. By changing her metaphorical clothes, she finds out her true strengths.
I guess that’s why I write YA. I’m attracted to stories where the character has to find her true strength. Her “superpower” is how my character Maggie Quinn would put it. I write in a fantasy setting, but it doesn’t have to be a literal superpower. It’s finding that inner strength or skill that the character is going to use to save her world--the whole world, or her small piece of it.
So, what about you? Whether it’s a well worn cliché or an element that always draws you in, what do you love in a book? It doesn’t have to be deep or thematic or literary. (Don’t let me navel gazing fool you. I’m really just trying to justify my rather embarrassing un-feminist love for the girl-in-boy’s clothes trope!)