For Writers

Writing Advice From MG Women Authors

By on March 29, 2021   /   Articles, For Writers, Writing  

To celebrate Women’s History Month, I put out a call for writing advice from women middle-grade authors. Here are their wonderful tips:

“Write your truth! There’s a reader out there who needs it.” —Mae Respicio, ANY DAY WITH YOU

“All the talent in the world will not get you over the finish line in publishing. Persistence is the true measure of a professional.” —Janet Fox, THE ARTIFACT HUNTERS

“A mistake is never a mistake unless you don’t learn from it.” —S.A. Larsen, MOTLEY EDUCATION

“Half of writing is daydreaming. It’s not putting words on a page, it’s staring out a window waiting for the story to float by.” —Lija Fisher, THE CRYPTID CATCHER

“Writing is an act of empowerment: You’re creating your own world. It’s a place for your individual voice to ring out. So tell the story you need to, and enjoy the process!” —Diane Magras, THE MAD WOLF’S DAUGHTER and THE HUNT FOR THE MAD WOLF’S DAUGHTER

“Nobody writes well in a first draft. I think the reason many writers fail to finish projects is because they are putting too much pressure on themselves to be a ‘good’ writer – whatever that means. I am a firm believer in Anne Lamott’s advice to write crummy rough drafts. The important thing is to get the story on paper so you have the raw material to work with. Then, in revision, that’s when the real work starts, sculpting, shaping, and finding the best way to tell your story.” —Tara Gilboy, UNWRITTEN and REWRITTEN

“Connect with other writers. They are a wonderful source of motivation and support, and will help you to hone your craft.” —Anne O’Brien Carelli, SKYLARK AND WALLCREEPER and ONE LIGHT

“Every piece of writing you create contains a piece of yourself. It can feel scary to send that piece out into the world, into the hands of other people. But when you realize (and you will) that you’re brave enough to do it—and strong enough to survive the possibility that others may not be careful or even kind with that piece of yourself—you will join in the miracle and magic of a writer’s gift: You will have healed a corner of the world, someone’s world, with that small gift of you. So be brave.” —R.L. Toalson, THE COLORS OF THE RAIN and THE WOODS

“Your first draft is not supposed to be perfect! It is easy to get intimidated when you read a great book or interesting news story, but it’s not only possible, but probable, that the writer’s first draft wasn’t good — at all. That’s okay, first drafts aren’t supposed to be good. They exist to get the information down, then you go back and fix it all up and make it sound better the next time through it, and the time after that. Give yourself a break if your first draft (or first time you play a new song or try to draw a photo or learn a new dance move) needs love and attention to get better. That’s all part of the process!” —Andrea Pyros, MY YEAR OF EPIC ROCK and PINK HAIR AND OTHER TERRIBLE IDEAS

“As a former advice columnist and life coach, I’ve doled out a fair number of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ over the years. My favorite piece of advice is this: ‘Don’t get too comfortable.’ That’s not to say you should sleep on a bed of nails or run a marathon in heels. I’m talking about stepping outside your comfort zone. Of doing the thing that scares you; that makes you say, ‘I can’t.’ Sure, it will be scary at first, and you may want to throw in the towel. You might even decide that trying is too hard—and you won’t even bother. But complacency comes at a cost. It will chip away at your confidence, until the ‘I can’ts’ feel more natural than the “I cans.” But that’s fear talking. You can do more than you realize. So, do the thing that scares you, whether it’s taking up a new hobby or starting a journal. If you don’t succeed, that’s okay. You can always try again.” —Melissa Roske, KAT GREENE COMES CLEAN

“What you need to succeed as an author: lots of hope, hard work, and chocolate.” —Cynthia Reeg, FROM THE GRAVE and INTO THE SHADOWLANDS

“You guide your career, not an agent or publisher. Be deliberate in your career choices and keep the long-term in mind. Make a five or ten-year plan, even if many aspects of success feel out of your control. And don’t be afraid to experiment and fail along the way.” —Kim Ventrella, HELLO FUTURE ME and THE SECRET LIFE OF SAM

I love all this advice! And here’s one from me:

“Have fun! Publishing can be a difficult industry and writing can be hard work, but the best part of that is the creating. Play with your characters. Explore your new world. And I’ll say it again—have fun.” —Samantha M Clark, THE BOY, THE BOAT, AND THE BEAST and ARROW

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The Myth of the Monomyth

By on March 5, 2021   /   Op-Ed, Pop Culture, Writing  
Is there any hope for rehabilitating the Hero's Journey for our 21st Century world?

The Myth of the Monomyth by Greg R. Fishbone asks, "Is there any hope for rehabilitating the Hero's Journey for our 21st Century world?"

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Mythoversal Newsletter.

The Status Quo

I grew up on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and imprinted on the Hero’s Journey as the definitive storytelling template, but my enthusiasm has been tempered lately by mythologists and folklorists who absolutely loathe this theory.

The monomyth has been called sexist, racist, colonialist, and harmful to the expression and appreciation of world cultures. But why? And is there any hope for rehabilitating the monomyth as a tool for creating and understanding stories in the context of our 21st Century world?

The Catalyst

I was six when I saw the original Star Wars movie, and I was hooked. From then on, I measured all other stories using Star Wars as my personal yardstick.

Acceptance and Action

I began to notice that a wide variety of stories would often start with a Luke Skywalker character called to an adventure by a Ben Kenobi character. The Luke Skywalker character would often undertake a quest to save a Princess Leia Organa character from a Darth Vader character, often with help from a Han Solo character and one or two C3P0 and R2D2 characters. I filled notebooks with every example I could find and engaged friends with my evolving theory that Star Wars could explain the story structure underlying a huge portion of the movies and books we all enjoyed.

Encounter with the Guru

What I’d independently reconstructed was the monomyth theory of Joseph Campbell, building upon the archetypal figures of Carl Jung, as adapted and applied by George Lucas and other filmmakers who sought to emulate his success.

Star Wars beats mapped onto Hero's Journey beats

Trials and Tribulations

Campbell summarized the monomyth as:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

Campbell’s theory was that this story template resonated with the human psyche, and had been present in the storytelling of diverse world cultures from humanity’s earliest days.

Friends and Foes

The monomyth theory was presented in The Hero with A Thousand Faces, Campbell’s 1949 book on comparative mythology. In the 1980s, with the success of the monomyth-fueled Star Wars original trilogy, PBS aired a discussion between Campbell and Bill Moyers in a program called The Power of Myth, which brought the monomyth to an even greater level of notoriety. Since then, Christopher Vogler, Blake Snyder, and others have refined the monomyth and extended it to the novel-writing and screenwriting process.

The Edge of the Abyss

At a workshop during the 2021 Arisia conference in January, I joined fellow panelists in a discussion of the more troubling aspects of Campbell’s work. These fell into four main categories:

First, while there are many myths that generally fit into the model proposed by Campbell, there are as many or more that do not, including such foundational stories as the myths of Gilgamesh and Beowulf. Therefore, the monomyth should always be presented with a caveat that it is not as universal as Campbell claimed it to be.

Second, the Heroine’s Journey is not accounted for. The Hero’s Journey has been called a masculine myth, based on traditional stories of male protagonists, generating new stories that best fit male protagonists, and appealing more strongly to male audiences. Other templates are required for more feminine storytelling. These include 45 Master Characters, a writing guide by Victoria Lynn Schmidt based on the theories of Campbellian psychotherapist Maureen Murdoch.

Third, the monomyth has been described as a hammer in search of a nail. Some stories and characters can be mangled into the stations and archetypes of a Hero’s Journey only at the cost of better understanding the essential distinctions that make them unique and special. An overreliance on monomyth-inspired movies has made it harder for audiences and critics to appreciate the stories that don’t fit into that mold, increasing and perpetuating the dominance of the monomyth to the detriment of other forms of storytelling.

And fourth, the adaptation of non-European mythologies to a Eurocentric lens has been seen as a form of cultural appropriation or cultural colonization. The Hero’s Journey is based on those Jungian archetypes closest to the surface in the collective consciousness of Western cultures, while other world cultures may emphasize different archetypes. When we remove a story from the culture that created it and view that story through a Eurocentric lens, or even through a lens that falsely purports to be “universal,” we shortchange the story’s culture of origin.

The Way Through

So is there any hope for rehabilitating the monomyth as a tool for writers in our 21st Century world?

I’d like to think so, but only by first recognizing that the monomyth is just one tool of many in a storyteller’s toolbox. The monomyth can be used to build and analyze story structures, but how much better could it be if we were using the entire toolbox, and looking at our stories through all available lenses?

Return to the Normal World

I still use the Hero’s Journey in my writing, but with an awareness of its problems and limitations. But perhaps the real Hero’s Journey requires throwing away all of our preconceived maps entirely and following each story wherever it leads.

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Mourning the Middle Grade Years and Finding Them Again by Donna Galanti

By on January 11, 2021   /   Articles, For Writers  

It struck me recently that I couldn’t remember the very last time I read a goodnight book to my son, Joshua. I asked him if he knew. As a teenager now, he couldn’t remember either.

“There was probably a night where you couldn’t read to me, Mom, because you were busy,” he said. “And then the next night we forgot about it. And the next.”

“So, it just faded away?”

“Yup.” *Mom choke-up*

Since then, I’ve been bothered by the fact that:
1. I desperately want to remember when and what that last goodnight book was.
2. If I’d known it was the last time, I would have cherished it.
3. Bedtime reading to my son is forever gone and I’m just realizing the significance of this now.

I mourn something now long disappeared that I had not even known was gone.

Along with bedtime reading gone of current children’s books with my son, so has the reading of books to him that I received as a child over 40 years ago. My mother wrote my name in mine, the year I received it, and who gave me the book. The Tooth Fairy brought me books from Beatrix Potter to Laura Ingalls Wilder to Roald Dahl. These books have now long been collecting dust on my son’s shelves.

“Mom, can we pack these books up now?” he asked, pointing to his bookshelf of old and new.

“Never!” I protested and gently dusted of books, taking them to my office where children’s books will never die.

These included my son’s best-loved books like Wonder, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Warriors, Flat Stanley, Goosebumps, Genius Files, Joshua Dread, Captain Underpants (the lunch signs are the BEST!), and Charlie Bone (Mom, this is THE best series EVER! You have to read it). And I’ll never forget my son’s excitement when he found out that the Charlie Bone series author, Jenny Nimmo, was blurbing my first middle grade book, Joshua and the Lightning Road.

All too soon for me, my son left the middle grade world. He moved on to reading dark, dystopian young adult novels.

And I realized, sadly, he also moved on from all of our kid shows: iCarly, Big Time Rush, Good Luck Charlie, Pair of Kings, Drake and Josh, Sponge Bob Square Pants. Watching them with him made me nostalgic for my own shows I grew up with like Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat, Benson, Greatest American Hero, and re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show and Leave it to Beaver.

Occasionally, I bring up our shared favorite episodes to him of middle grade shows buried in tv-land dust.

“Can’t we just watch a Sponge Bob episode tonight? How about the Frankendoodle one or Pizza Delivery or Best Day Ever?” I asked.

“No, Mom,” he laughed. “That’s kid stuff.”

“What about iCarly where Spencer pranks everyone and does the prank song?” I started bopping around.

“No, Mom.” He gave me an eye roll.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh.

It’s true that I’ve grown with my son as he’s grown, but in doing so I’ve also relived many of my own childhood paths through his middle grade books and shows – and I don’t want them to end. I’ve returned home to a place where I will always be young, laughing myself silly, on magical adventures, and experiencing so many wondrous ‘firsts’.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s there weren’t books categorized “middle grade” and so I downed Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King, Jack London, Paul Zindel, and V.C. Andrews (all soooo not kid-friendly). They were my “middle grade” then, but now I have my son’s books, too (and age-appropriate!). And someday, I hope he’ll come back around to them just like I did. Maybe with his own children. He doesn’t need to relive his childhood now. He’s living it. And I realized, my son and his book world set me on my own journey as a middle grade author. What a wonderful legacy he gave me, even though he’s moved on.

He also doesn’t need me to be home anymore after school. He has his own business and drives to his restaurant job. He doesn’t need me to read him bedtime stories or cut up his meat. He doesn’t need me to do his laundry. He can do that simply fine (good!).

Don’t misunderstand me; I am enjoying the new phase of things. Watching him go to work, open a bank account, clean his room because he wants to (faint!), and calm his frazzled mom down when writing deadlines loom.

“It’ll be okay Mom,” he now says. “You’ll get it done. You always do.” He even helped me years ago in writing my first book when I got stuck on plot and character.

He may have said goodbye to middle grade for now, but I love sharing in the continued new wonders with him. I just won’t ever stop loving middle grade, not since I fell in love with it again through my son. I’ll keep writing it and reading it—and waiting for the day he comes back to it. *fingers crossed*

Have you ever mourned moving on from a phase in your child’s middle grade life? What were some of your favorite books as a child? What are some new favorite children’s books now?

 

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