I haven’t posted anything in quite awhile … obviously.
But the good news is that I finally applied to graduate school for an MFA in Creative Writing! I’m very excited to hear if I’ve been accepted and even more excited to get started in the program (assuming I’m accepted). I took a lot of time writing my essays so I haven’t been reading as much. I did finish one of the books on my list and I am nearly done with another.
I’m looking forward to getting back to my YA bestsellers and posting why I think they’re awesome!
Incarceron was a trip. It was a little slow to get into, but once I was in, I was hooked. When I mean slow, it wasn’t that it had too little action or too much narration. It was because there was a lot of sci-fi, alternate world stuff going on that was a little hard to follow at first—at least for me. It might be completely different for someone else.
But, like I said, Incarceron was a trip. Fans of Hunger Games might want to give it a try. They are completely different stories, of course, but have the same sort of vibe.
And like Hunger Games, Incarceron was a best seller because of it’s …
High Stakes
Think Shawshank Redemption, but on crack. Try breaking out of a prison that’s alive, doesn’t want you to leave, and can kill you at whim. Talk about stacking the deck.
Here’s how Fisher did it:
1. Finn aka Giles (the lost prince) finds a key and believes it’s his means to escape Incarceron.
2. He gets help from the outside, the Warden’s daughter, Claudia, who has been looking for the entrance for Incarceron her whole life, not to mention the lost prince, and has never found either.
3. The prison doesn’t want Finn/Giles to leave and leaving isn’t that easy when Incarceron is smaller than an ice cube.
I really liked the imaginative world that Catherine Fisher created. With every page, she left me wondering what will the prison do next and what “really” is Incarceron. Even though the prison was a larger-than-life place, all the work it took to develop it would have been meaningless without the stakes that Fisher created.
I think Incarceron is a good example of a balance between world-building and plot. Fisher was able to blend both perfectly and, in doing so, she crafted an engaging and enjoying story while at the same time showing us a crazy world within worlds.
For those of us that want to recreate the same in our own manuscripts, it’s important to remember that too much focus on world-building without the same amount of attention on the plot will end up destroying both efforts.
I was super excited when I heard a rumor that Shiver wasn’t a series and that I’d actually get some closure from a YA book, especially a YA paranormal romance. It was a complete psych-out and book number two, Linger, will be coming out July 20, 2010.
Shiver is another paranormal romance that has risen to bestseller status. On a side note, I really liked the atmosphere of the story. It felt cold. Weather played a big part and Stiefvater did a good job of making "temperature" just as salient as the characters and the setting.
Even so, I don’t think Stiefvater’s ability to bring out details was the reason it was a bestseller. However, she did do one thing that I have yet to see in other paranormal romance. Whether or not it is the reason for its popularity is debatable, but it’s worth mentioning.
What separated Shiver from other paranormal romance was because of it’s ….
Point of View
Shiver was from the viewpoint of both love interests (the wolf-boy and the girl) in the first person. This is no easy feat, but because Stiefvater was able to pull it off, it provided a greater depth to the characters. We were able to see the world from their eyes and the eyes of others.
There really is no “how she did” type of explanation, but I think if this is going to be replicated certain rules will have to be adhered.
1. Who?
a. You must clearly write out who is taking the lead. Make it blatantly obvious. The reader must know right away whose head they are in or they will only get confused.
b. Stiefvator titled each chapter with the name of the character. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked and left no room for confusion.
2. Voice
a. Character voice is going to be really important. Readers are going to figure out right away if the boy and the girl sound exactly the same. I doubt the reaction will be good.
b. Stiefvator used little things about the characters to separate them. For example, Sam was a musician and he’d break out in lyrics, making his voice guyish. Grace would worry and ruminate, making her voice sound girly.
I liked Shiver’s point of view and I think Stiefvater skillfully handled it. Something like this could easily unravel. It’s really important in working with dual point of views to make the voices and POV completely clear to the reader or you’ll lose them.
