I've Been M.I.A., But I'm Back With a College Degree!

This blog is something I treasure. It allows me a platform to write my thoughts on topics that are important to me in long form, and then to distribute those thoughts to a large audience. It provides me with a place to practice my writing, which, to a young writer trying to sell her fiction, is valuable no matter what the medium. It also produces instant feedback from readers and gives me the opportunity to interact with them.

So why haven't I written anything here since June of 2014? Why have I been neglecting something so important to me for almost a year?

Well, a number of life-changing things have happened to me in the past ten months. For your convenience, here's a chronological list:

• This person wandered into my life and made me fall in love. Rude. I would recommend following said person on Twitter and Instagram though, since both include quality content (Danny is both an amateur photographer and sassmaster).
• I went to the Caribbean on a family vacation and met some donkeys. The donkeys in Bonaire are morally offended by any form of journalism and so refused to allow me to write a blog post in their country.
• I started my senior year of college, which is the primary reason I wasn't updating this blog. Because of how draining senior year was, both academically and emotionally, I actually fell behind on everything, including writing/editing/revising my novels, reading for pleasure, keeping up with the publishing world, etc. Even playing video games started to feel like exerting too much effort.
• During my senior year, I taught a class on Leo Tolstoy, one of my favorite classic authors. If you're interested, we read Anna Karenina, selections from War and Peace, part of his essay "What is Art?", and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (a compilation of his shorter works), using the award-winning translations by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The class was small, but a big academic and personal success. It also took a lot of work, as you would expect. If you're into beautiful prose, expertly crafted characters, and emotions in general, I recommend you read all of these things.
• I ended up smack in the middle of a censorship controversy at my university (which, now that I no longer attend the school, I am comfortable stating is the University of Redlands). I was co-editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Bulldog Weekly when, midway through the year, our student government decided to cut our funding. Suspiciously, this came after we published an article that didn't make the university look very good. My co-editor and I wrote about it here, but I plan to write a blog post talking more extensively about this as well.
• I graduated from college, earning my bachelor's degree in Writing Fiction: Listening, Absorbing, and Creating, which is a combination of the literature, creative writing, and psychology fields. If you're wondering why my major sounds made up, that's because it is. During my undergrad, I was part of an incredible program called the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies that allows students to design their own majors, which requires a lot of extra thought and self-motivation. I have a lot of negative feelings toward my university right now because of the whole newspaper drama mentioned above, but I can't speak more highly of Johnston and it will always have my heart. So, if you're considering the U of R, DO JOHNSTON.

And now I'm doing some traveling in Europe as a sort of graduation gift to myself. But what comes next?

Originally, I had planned to pursue a master's degree immediately after finishing my undergrad. Senior year helped me realize that I'm pretty burned out on school, at least for now, so I'll be spending the next year focusing on my novels, catching up with the publishing world, pleasure reading, and keeping up with this blog. I'm so excited to finally have time to participate in these things again, without having to schedule them around homework.

After that? We'll see. What masters degree would I want to pursue? Many might think I'd go for a creative writing MFA. I considered that at first, but now I know that's not the path I want to take. I have many reasons for this, which I hope to discuss on this blog at some point in the future.

What about literature? Tempting, but I think I'd rather indulge in all the pleasure reading I can in the years to come. Pursuing a masters in literature means committing myself to whatever my professors list in the syllabus. While I'm sure they'd assign some excellent reading, it means another several years of not having time to read purely for pleasure. Also, the niche I'm most interested in learning more about is Russian literature, and I'm pretty sure that requires learning Russian. Which would be great, and I would love to do that eventually! But I'd prefer to focus on getting my writing out there first.

If I'm going to pursue a masters in anything, my ideal choice (for the moment) is a masters in publishing. I'm really interested in becoming involved with publishing from the editorial side as well as the author side, and I've looked into some publishing programs that seem like excellent networking opportunities.

So, expect more posts from me now. I don't have homework taking up my time anymore and I'm looking forward to posting my thoughts somewhere less restrictive than Twitter. For those of you who have stuck with this blog, thank you so much for reading. For those of you who started following me within the past year, welcome, and I'm glad to have you!

I hope this is the beginning of a fulfilling and educational new era for this blog. Keep an eye out on Instagram for photos of England, Ireland, Scotland, and more!

-Morgan

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No, I'm Not Embarrassed: Good Lit is Good Lit

When I woke up this morning, there was rage all over my Twitter feed. I couldn't find the source, but it seemed to have something to do with YA readers being shamed for, well, reading YA. What's new, right?

I went about my day normally. Later, a friend posted the link to the offending article, and I read it. It's called Against YA, with the tagline, "yes, adults should be embarrassed to read young adult books." It argues that by reading young adult literature, adults are missing out on more "important" literature, namely literary fiction. Such readers are apparently selling themselves short by choosing "escapism" over more complex, ambiguous works only found in the adult section of the bookstore.

This article reeeaaally got under my skin, for a number of reasons.

(Side note: I'm not entirely comfortable with posting the link to the article, since I know controversial articles love to generate more traffic, and I'm contributing to that by posting it. But it's not fair for me to present my argument without offering up the other side, so there it is).

If you follow this blog, you know I write YA fantasy. You might also know that I write YA contemporary, and adult contemporary, or what the writer of the article calls realistic fiction. I am interested in a variety of different perspectives and audiences, so I don't feel comfortable limiting myself to just one category or genre. Naturally, then, I don't limit myself as a reader, either.

I used to. You'll know from some of my past entries that I used to limit my reading to realistic, literary fiction, particularly classics (yet I was writing YA fantasy?? Yeah, I was still figuring out the whole read-the-genre-you-write thing...don't worry, I learned). I agreed with this woman, mostly because I considered most YA books to be carbon copies of Twilight, which I disliked. I looked down on these books because I thought people used them for escapism. I, too, thought YA limited itself to "instant gratification" and shirked the harsher realities my classics offered me.

There are so many problems here.

First off, there is nothing inherently wrong with escapism. The reason it used to give me pause is because I thought people who sought out escapism wanted to ignore the problems in their lives, and thus never deal with those problems. I thought if you wanted to escape, you were weak, and your real life would fall apart around you.

My prejudice against YA was probably wrapped up in this mindset. But how unfair is it to assume that someone who wants a little escape is going to let their world go to pieces? There's a difference between wanting to get away for a little and being seriously dysfunctional. Also, I'm a hypocrite--what the hell do I play video games for if not for the escapism? The graphics? It's definitely not the graphics.

Secondly, the generalizations about YA listed in this article make it clear that this woman has not read widely in the YA category, or at least not widely enough to appreciate its many nuances and opportunities for complexity. According to her, YA is full of hunky dory protagonists who never self reflect and always get a perfectly tied-up ending. YA is meant to be pleasurable, she says. It's fluff. It doesn't let you empathize with people who aren't like you. It's easy on the heart and satisfying.

Right. That's why The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which she mentions in the article, leaves us with a good feeling. Wait, never mind. It ends with the main character suffering a serious emotional breakdown thanks to a traumatic event from his past. The readers are left wondering how he will cope with this latest relapse, and we don't get to know. If Katsa had never self-reflected in Graceling, never confronted an upsetting emotional reality about herself, she would never have won my respect. Boy do I wish the end of The Amber Spyglass was "easy on the heart and satisfying," because then I could've avoided the overwhelming panic and indignation I felt when I realized what was going to happen (I kept flipping the pages back and forth as if that would change it). If we're counting Harry Potter, I managed to empathize with Severus Snape. Last I checked, I wasn't a bitter, thirty-something-year-old man with greasy hair and an unrequited crush he really should have let go of a long time ago (yes, I'm being critical of him here, but feeling empathy for someone does not eliminate your ability to criticize that person. I felt sad for Snape, but I could still see issues with his behavior).

Or, let's take the book I'm reading right now: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, which follows a girl in her late teens who is placed in a women's concentration camp during World War II. The narrator has a captivating voice. The characters are interesting and respond to trauma in their own unique ways. The author does not shy away from the gruesome realities of a concentration camp, nor does she give us closure about what happens to everyone (oh, look! Ambiguity!). It is frustrating and, at times, sickening to watch these characters endure what they have to endure. It is not "pleasurable"--the only "pleasure" I could think of getting out of this book is being glad I'm not the one in a concentration camp, but I wouldn't call that "pleasure." I am not reading it to feel better about life; I'm reading it because I want to see what happens to these girls.

But, Morgan, wouldn't you ultimately get more out of a piece of literary fiction? Doesn't this book pale in comparison to those classics you love? Aren't you an adult?

Ah, there you are, Ulysses by James Joyce, which I spent last month reading with a class. I knew you'd come in handy.

When it comes to literary fiction, Ulysses is about as literary as you can get. It contains made-up words, nonsensical sentences, literally hundreds of obscure references (many of which are crucial to the experience, so have fun looking them up!), confusing narrators (who the hell is talking in this paragraph?), and stream-of-consciousness prose that is sometimes impossible to follow. Also, every chapter is written in a different style. Every time you think you're used to how Ulysses operates, boom! It transforms into a different monster.

Many people who haven't studied it closely or approached it blind think the book is a load of nonsense and isn't worth it. But I loved the hell out of this book. If you have it, or next time you visit a bookstore, flip Ulysses open to chapter eleven, the music-themed chapter. The chapter has a freaking overture made out of language. What does that mean? It means it operates like a musical overture, which plays a collection of sounds that will later appear throughout different parts of the performance that is to follow. Except Ulysses does it with words. The overture is made up of of a page and a half of short phrases that, in some form or another, appear in the chapter. As you read, you find yourself playing "Where's Waldo"--"Ah, there's the reference to the first line of the overture! Look, that must refer to line twelve!" It's mind-blowing and exciting. It makes you re-think how we use language and how stories are formed.

I also love the hell out of Rose Under Fire so far. I feel a rush of anticipation every time I sit down to read it, just as I did with Ulysses. How is it possible for me to sincerely enjoy such different books, especially one on top of the other? Because I understand that these novels are aiming for different effects, and those effects are equally legitimate. Rose Under Fire places compelling characters in a terrifying situation. It wants me to feel their reality and stress over the characters' fates. Ulysses challenges my expectations as a reader and demands that I pay just as much attention to the language as I do to plot and character--probably even more attention. These are both great goals. They are both stimulating. They both make me feel something.

Of course, if the article angered me as a reader, it angered me as a writer, too. I took most issue with the writer's claim that "[YA readers] are asked to abandon the mature insights into [an emotional] perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults."

If this is what YA is about, then evidently, I haven't been reading YA. I've seen plenty of observations and epiphanies in YA literature that some adults never even think about or achieve. I have stated that there is nothing wrong with escapism already, but as someone who does not personally read for escapism, I tend to write against it. The novels I write (about and for teenagers) depend on mature insights. They feed on them. They could not exist without them. The more you follow my main character, the higher and higher she reaches for these insights, though sometimes she'll flinch away from them, too, because they're painful and she's human.

To argue that YA forces you to do away with adult emotionality negates everything I've been writing for, and negates a sizable percentage of the feelings a teenager experiences. Because many of the things teenagers feel are very real, very adult feelings. That's part of why adolescence is so terrifying--emotions aren't simple anymore. The feelings are new, but that does not make them lesser. As for adults who think reading about these "first" experiences is a form of regression, well, most of the adults I know would benefit from revisiting the roots of these emotions. That "first" feeling laid a foundation, after all.

Are you a literary novel? Give me feelings. Are you a YA novel? Give me feelings. Grip me by the heart, book, and I will love you, because feelings are the whole damn reason I'm here.

-Morgan

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Classics and Contemporary Novels: How Both Can Improve Your Writing

A while ago, I wrote what I now consider to be a fairly naive post about how I am at a disadvantage in the literary industry because I love to read classics, and my novels are consequently influenced by them. I couldn't understand what the literary world had against archaic language, flowery descriptions, and novels that went on forever when I went wild over them. Why must I conform? I cried to the skies. Why must I cooperate with the rules The Man set down?!

Well, I was right about one thing: limiting myself to classics did put me at a disadvantage. But I acted like this was outside my control. I acted as if enjoying classics meant I couldn't enjoy anything else.

Before I get to the point of this post, let me ask you something. Have you, as a writer (or as some other kind of artist, or even just as a human being going through the world), ever heard the same rule beaten into your head over and over, and you understood it was a rule, but you never really understood why? For instance, as a kid, you probably knew your parents wanted you to eat your vegetables and cut down on the candy. This was an accepted fact because your parents said it, yet some tiny voice in your head went, but, why? You couldn't fathom why someone would make such a rule. Candy is awesome. Vegetables aren't awesome (or maybe you were like me and you thought vegetables were awesome, but not quite as awesome as candy).

For me, there was a rule like that in the writing world: use simple language. I saw this and thought, but...I like my pretty, adjective-filled descriptions of bathroom tiles. I like sophisticated vocabulary you don't often see in the twenty-first century. You...you want me to be a minimalist, like Hemingway? But I'm not him! You people are all against me! I literally scratched my head over this rule for six freaking years.

Then, while studying abroad in Ireland last semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to read contemporary and classic novels side by side. I took a class called Contemporary Irish Fiction as well as 19th Century Irish Writing. Now, keep in mind, I'd started picking up contemporary novels again recently, so I was already starting to learn my lesson. I read a slew of YA novels over the summer, The Hunger Games series the winter break before that, etc. But this gave me the opportunity to read them at the same time. To compare. To see that--

Oh.

Oh.

There are reasons many of the qualities often found in classics are now extinct in contemporary literature. Good reasons. Suddenly, I'd lost my patience with seven-page-long monologues about the same thing, because I'd re-entered the world of contemporary works, and those authors, uh, cut those parts out. Because they didn't want their readers begging for mercy.

However. You may have noticed the title of this post. I am not here to bash classic novels. Now that I've been enlightened and have familiarized myself fairly well with both "genres," I feel like I better understand what writing lessons can be gleaned from each. Let me tell you, my prose has improved immensely ever since this epiphany. I am simplifying the hell out of my latest draft, and I am reevaluating those anachronistic words, but I'm also remembering what classics taught me.

Here's a list of why you, writer, should read a healthy balance of both classic and contemporary novels and, more importantly, why.

CONTEMPORARY NOVELS

1) Simplify your language. I'm starting with this one for obvious reasons. I was editing one night, reading over one of my overwrought sentences, and then I thought to myself, "Morgan--you're trying to get a complicated concept across to your reader. So why the hell would you use complicated language to confuse them even further?" Even worse is when your characters are performing a simple task and you write it out in the most convoluted way possible. I'll provide a sample of my own writing so you see what I mean. Here's the sentence from the unedited first draft, about a teacher's reaction to my main character asking to go to the bathroom because she's upset: "At first, [the teacher's] wrinkled lips thinned, accentuating the pinkness of her lipstick, but her features softened as she scrutinized Ama’s face, which Ama had been forced to scrunch in order to tether it to what was socially acceptable, and to prevent it from bursting like a pressured dam." Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone, what the hell? Slow down. That is way too many words for such a simple thing. Here it is after I simplified it: "At first, the teacher’s wrinkled lips thinned. But her features softened when she studied Ama’s face, which Ama forced herself to scrunch so it wouldn’t burst like a pressured dam." There, that's better. The action remains and we still understand Ama's emotional struggle without getting beaten over the head by it. We lost the bit about the lipstick, but who cares? No one will miss a useless detail like that.

 2) Concision. Yeah, I'm still struggling with this one, but I'm getting better. Ever notice how contemporary novels tend to be slimmer, while older novels could be doorstops? There are exceptions, of course--1984 is tiny, while the Harry Potter books are famously huge. Contemporary novelists have realized that the more quickly you get your point across, the less likely you are to lose your reader's attention. The Perks of Being a Wallflower wasn't 500 pages long because it didn't need to be. It said everything it needed to say in about 200 pages and said it beautifully. Conversely, I love Dracula, but it definitely didn't need to be that long. In fact, I started to get really sick of how long it took to reach the climax. Older novels were sometimes longer because authors got paid by the word, or because the novel was serialized--the books would be released a few chapters at a time in magazines and readers would beg for more. Those days are behind us, so try not to write a doorstopper, unless it really works for your story (and, again, this is advice from someone who...writes doorstoppers).

3) Pacing. This kind of ties into concision, but it gets its own category because it's the most stark difference I've noticed between classics and contemporary novels. The first contemporary novel I picked up in a long time since my classics phase was The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (I read The Golden Compass in ninth grade but didn't finish the series until I was nineteen). For the first time in years, I found it extremely difficult to put the book down. I'm crazy about War and Peace and will recommend it to anyone who breathes, but it also drains your mental energy, so putting it away for a while takes less willpower. With Subtle Knife, I could keep turning pages and not even notice how quickly I was moving. The story drew me in, and I felt a desperate need to know what happened next. Sure, parts of classic novels can create this effect, but they're more likely to drag. Contemporary novelists know to eliminate the parts that drag, or at least minimize them as much as possible. For a slow reader like me, this is helpful.

 4) Understanding the market. This is more for writers who are looking to get published than anyone else, and part of what made me complain about my "disadvantages" in that post from 2012, because I was a snot-nosed brat. If you read nothing but classics all the time, how the hell do you expect to get published? You're not competing with Austen and Dostoevsky and Joyce. I mean, you are to some degree, since your books would hopefully be sold in the same stores as theirs are (eep!). But it's not the same. What if your idea has been done before, and you don't know it because you haven't read much past 1960? What if you thought your protagonist named Katniss had the most unique name ever, and you're not Suzanne Collins? What if you make the amateur mistake of comparing your novel to Great Expectations in a query letter? (Don't do it. Please don't.) If you know what people are reading right now, you have a better chance at making a difference. You can spot the stories that aren't being told. You're more likely to sound original because you've done your research.

CLASSIC NOVELS

1) Learning new vocabulary. "Morgan, what the hell?" you must be thinking. "Didn't you just say to simplify your language? In bold, multiple times?" Yeah, but sometimes, a situation calls for a sophisticated word. If you've never paid much attention to a classic novel or English class, your vocabulary will be limited. And, as a writer who will be tempted to repeat the same words no matter how expansive your vocabulary is, that isn't good. When you're stuck, say, describing how someone is feeling, and "sad" just isn't cutting it, what do you do if your arsenal lacks words? Maybe your character's sadness is really deep, quiet, and thoughtful, so "melancholy" would fit better. There is no other single word to describe that feeling, so use it. You need it. Classic novels are obsessed with the word melancholy. I can't remember any contemporary novels I've seen it in, except Because of Winn Dixie, though I'm sure there are some. If it fits, then please pull a word like this from a classic. Just don't overuse it.

 2) Creating unforgettable characters. This is not to say that all characters in contemporary novels suck, or aren't memorable. Far from it. My ears will probably perk when they hear a Harry Potter character's name until I die. But dude, think about Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. The Greek/Roman gods. Society has held onto these characters for decades, centuries, millennia, and still hasn't let go. Who doesn't want to create a character who millions of people take into their hearts as if that character is a living, breathing person? Readers have met characters who touched them in some personal way, inspired them to do something with their lives, even saved them. I will encourage all my children to read Jane Eyre at some point not just to see how a woman can behave against a society that dislikes her, but how admirable and courageous a person, male or female or somewhere in between, can be. I want everyone to read to the end of The Brothers Karamzov so they can sniffle at the last five pages and want to hug the hell out of Alyosha Karamazov. Like I said, this can happen in contemporary novels, but such novels can sometimes be harder to find. This is partly because there's an emphasis on plots and ideas in the literary world today--which is necessary, since a cool concept is often what will get someone to read a book in the first place. Good contemporary novelists, like Emma Donoghue and Rachel Hartman to name two very different ones, will balance well-written characters with interesting plots. But many spend more time on plot than character, and finding the gems can become a challenge.

3) Complexity. When I read the introduction to War and Peace, the translators claimed that Leo Tolstoy had taken life and put it on paper. Sensory observations, understanding of humanity, realism in general--all spot on. I thought, pfft, yeah right. Then I read it, and oh my god, were they right. It's one of the reasons Tolstoy has gone down in history. He gave us three dimensional people and a world that breathed, and breathed so truly that we could recognize that world as our own, despite the fact that we don't live in 19th-century Russia. He also layered the book with ideas, meaning, philosophies, and questions regarding life that we might never have thought about. I'm not talking about complex vocabulary here. I'm talking about complex characters, complex worlds, complex ideas, complex morality. This is, once again, something more easily found in classics, because it's usually why they're classics. To Kill a Mockingbird pointed a finger at racism, but through the eyes of a young girl named Scout, so Harper Lee couldn't quite point at it directly. The social commentary becomes clear without any character having to explicitly say, "This is wrong" or "This is racist." In the same novel, a character previously thought to be evil, Boo Radley, turns out to be sweet and sensitive, which surprises Scout. There is still clearly something wrong with him, but not in the way Scout thought--it's more complex than that. Yes, this is present in plenty of contemporary novels, and boy do I love those novels. Yet so many of them employ cookie-cutter characters, stereotypes, and black-and-white morality, so you've got to work harder to find the good stuff.

4)  Understanding what has stopped working. A big mistake I made during my classics phase was thinking that if a book won the honor of becoming "classic," that meant everything about it worked. I didn't understand why I couldn't write endless sentences when James Joyce could (other than the fact that he was actually good at writing them). Why was Melmoth the Wanderer allowed to be 600 pages long when mine wasn't? Why did F. Scott Fitzgerald get to use all those adverbs in The Great Gatsby? The answer is this: no book is perfect. No, fifteen-year-old Morgan, not even a classic. A really good book is a book with so many strong points that the weaknesses fade into the background, or at least seem to matter less. Melmoth the Wanderer's length was mostly excused because Melmoth was a fascinating character with an intriguing perspective on humanity. James Joyce was long-winded, sure, but look how unique, and often beautiful, his language is. The Great Gatsby took a jab at the corruption of luxury, and did it eloquently enough that people tolerate the excessive adverbs. By reading classics, you can isolate what made it so memorable (not necessarily to the world, but to you) as well as what made it a struggle to read. Eliminate the bad, but keep the good in your brain. Then you can strive to improve your own writing without outright imitating everything about the classics, either.

Hope this helped someone. It sure helped me.

-Morgan 

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Why Video Games Are Like Novels

Because I'm dumb, I didn't bring any of my video games to Dublin with me. I figured I wouldn't have time to play them (I don't) and that I probably wouldn't miss them much, anyway (I do). But I'm surrounded by them--my brother has been Snapchatting me pictures of him playing the recently released Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix, and fellow gamers comment on my Triforce earrings when I wear them. The GameStop around the corner from my apartment taunts me, and the release date of the new Pokemon games looms ever closer.

(Note: I decided in 2011, when I turned eighteen, that I was now a Grown Up and would no longer play Pokemon games. Apparently, I forgot I was the sister of a boy whose first word was literally "Ash," as in Ash Ketchum from the Pokemon anime series, and who has more than lived up to that first word in his fourteen years of life. Let's just say that was the year Pokemon Black and White came out, my brother bought them, and I became a green-eyed monster whenever I saw him playing. So I bought Pokemon Black. Now I no longer care about being a Grown Up and will play my goddamn Pokemon games. But I'm digressing).

The point of all this is that video games have been weighing on my mind lately. It lead me to thinking about myself as a consumer of fiction. I have never been one who spends a lot of time watching TV or movies, not even when I was in them. The only shows I currently watch are Doctor Who, Legend of Korra and So You Think You Can Dance, and the latter one mostly serves as a way to bond with my family (I also started Game of Thrones a few weeks ago, but I'm not caught up and haven't watched in several weeks). People gawk at me when I list what timeless movies I've never seen (never watched a full Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movie, nor have I seen The Godfather, Bambi, Rocky Horror Picture Show, etc.).

No, my favorite forms of fiction are books and video games. This puzzles people sometimes, as if they're two categories of nerd that don't often intersect. It's as if someone who will spend hours agonizing her way through the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time and someone who will spend hours poring over a Tolstoy doorstopper cannot be the same person.

Actually, my preferred fiction mediums make sense to me, because they are very much alike.

First of all, when I think of books and video games, I think of characters, stories, and settings you must spend a lot of time with. Some books can be finished in a day, but most of them can't, and shouldn't. Even the ones you devour in a single day take several hours, at least. Their length requires you to put the book down, move about your daily life, and come back to it later. You repeat this process until the book is finished, and by the end, you've spent days, weeks, perhaps months visiting that world. It's like a portable wardrobe to Narnia that you may enter and exit at will.

As a result, books take on a kind of existence that it is more difficult for, say, a two-hour movie to achieve. If the book is good enough, it's easy to imagine the characters are out there somewhere during those in-between periods when you've left the book in limbo. You stopped reading for the moment, but that doesn't mean the characters stopped, and you know that because of all the pages left to read. The characters are alive, and so is their world. And, since you've spent so much time there, you attach to it like you would a home. It becomes familiar.

Video games are the same way. They take hours to complete, you often can't finish them in one sitting, and the characters become part of your daily life, if only for a week or so. They also take the whole "living world" thing literally. Most games have a narrative, and to beat the game you have to follow that narrative and complete tasks pertaining to it. But many games, including those in my three favorite franchises mentioned above, have sidequests, extra places to visit, secret treasures. The world seems real because it's explorable. Again, if you spend enough time in it, the world of the video game becomes a home. I probably know how to get around Kingdom Hearts' Traverse Town better than I know how to navigate my own neighborhood.

"But wait," you argue, "people literally spend years following television shows! They (hopefully) take longer than any book or video game to finish! You can't tell me the TARDIS isn't as much a home as your dang Traverse Town!"

Well, hypothetical person, you're right. I would sooner equate a television series with a book "series" or video game "series," and count individual episodes alongside individual novels and games, but I see what you're saying. What makes video games and books really stand apart, though, comes through in my next point:

Books and video games are the only forms of fiction I can think of that require your participation.

Part of the reason I struggle with watching very many shows or movies is because, while I'm sitting there letting the show or movie happen to me, I get this itching feeling that I'm wasting time. It's not an altogether rational feeling, since there are some fantastic pieces of cinema out there, big screen and small. Nevertheless, I'm physically doing nothing while I receive visual and auditory stimuli. That is it.

Books and video games literally cannot be enjoyed, understood, or completed without your engagement. If you don't feed a book's words into your imagination or make an effort to interpret what's being said, you won't be able to visualize what's going on, nor will you be able to follow the plot, form attachments to characters, etc. Yes, similar brain work is required for following TV and movie plots, but you don't have to expend as much effort because the sights and sounds are displayed for you. If you're playing a video game, and you don't strategize well or load up with enough items, BOOM! The boss kills you, and your narrative will not continue until you overcome that obstacle.

How wonderful is it that such interactive modes of fiction exist? There's a real give-and-take relationship between the creator and consumer going on here, and it's beautiful. A writer who describes a room as "large and white" leaves the rest of the experience in the reader's hands, because every reader's imagination is different. Some readers will dream up an off-white room the size of a school auditorium. Others will think of a place so white it blinds you, and it's as big as freaking Buckingham Palace.

On the video game side, the creator decides much of the larger things that make up the game, but allows the player plenty of agency. What keyblade will you choose in Kingdom Hearts? What Pokemon will you start with in Ruby Version? Even in games with more limited options, there's freedom: will you run straight for the character that has the Thing You Need To Proceed With The Game? Or will you run around and around one of the computer characters, jump on his head, and light him on fire while he just stands there, because it's hilarious? It's up to you.

I love books and video games because you have to work for them. What's more rewarding than feeling like you've earned your fiction?

-Morgan

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Top 15 Strongest Female Characters (According to Me)

A long long while back, I asked via Twitter if people would like it if I made up a list of who I consider the strongest women in fiction. I never got around to it because of some personal stuff in my life that kind of turned my whole routine upside down. And then I moved to Dublin. But here I am now, ready to present you with some kick-ass women who you should definitely acquaint yourselves with if you haven't already.

Below are fifteen female characters I have come across and loved, whether I found them in books, TV shows, movies, or video games. Are there other strong female characters out there? Of course, but if I haven't included them, I either haven't met them yet or I don't count them among my favorites. There were a few characters I considered putting on this list who I ultimately decided to leave off because I didn't connect enough with them personally. So, this list is quite biased and personal to me.

Also, this post may include spoilers. I'll try to leave out big spoilers if I can, though. I did my best to put these in ascending order, but as I get closer to #1, it may be more difficult for me to choose between heroines. Here goes!

#15

 KATSA

 (From Graceling by Kristin Cashore)

Katsa is wonderful, but there's a reason she's at the bottom of the list. It took me 200 pages to really love this character, which is interesting--usually, if I really dislike a character right off the bat (like I did with Katsa), it's hard for that character to win me over. In fact, while reading the beginning of Graceling, I was angry because Katsa exemplified the type of character I detest: the heroine whose "strength" comes from a callous toughness that is both physical and emotional. I thought, "Oh no, another protagonist trying to 'prove herself' by kicking ass but who is actually an unkind and unpleasant person." But Cashore did something interesting with it right around the time Katsa chops off all her hair, i.e. around the time Katsa stops taking orders from her uncle and becomes an autonomous person. Katsa was so unlikeable because her uncle's tyranny was preventing her from being who she really wanted to be; he was stunting her personality and her self-worth. On top of that, Katsa spends the rest of the novel exploring her emotional callousness, which emerges as a psychologically crippling problem for her. That is what saved Katsa for me, and that type of self-exploration is what made her worthy of this list.

#14

SABRINA

(From Sabrina)

Sabrina's one of those characters who is instantly relatable but also instantly off-putting. She's in love with a man who will never have her...but to the point where she locks herself in the family garage and tries to commit suicide over it. What a drama queen, right? But, like with Katsa, it's her emotional journey that makes Sabrina strong. She travels to Paris and does some growing up, but still has some maturing to do when she returns home two years later. The man she once loved suddenly develops feelings for her now that she's older and prettier, and she falls for that. Later, she uncovers more about the kind of person he is and realizes that if he really loved her, he would've loved her back when she was a dowdy chauffer's daughter, not just after her transformation. Sabrina instead sets her sights on another man, one who loves her for who she is and sees her worth as an individual.

#13

JANE EYRE

 (from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)

A lot of people misunderstand what makes Jane Eyre such a strong character. I've seen people claim that her infatuation with Mr. Rochester makes her a weak character, which I emphatically disagree with. What impressed me about Jane Eyre this: she's head-over-heels in love with Mr. Rochester, she's thrilled he loves her back, she's all set to marry him, she finds out he's actually married to someone else and has been lying all along and...she leaves. She knows her self-worth, she knows he treated her badly, and so she leaves. That is not an easy thing to do, especially when she's been told how ugly and worthless she is all her life. Being lied to by someone you love doesn't make them instantly unattractive. How soul-crushing it must have been to have looked the man she still desperately loved in the eye and tell him she couldn't be with him. She returns to him in the end, but only after he's lost everything, learned a bitter lesson, and gained even more respect for her.

#12

TIANA

 (From The Princess and The Frog)

This girl's got an ambition, man, and she works her ass off to reach her goal. She has no money, no help from anyone, but she's still learned how to cook, researched potential buildings for her restaurant, and saved every penny she can because nobody is going to stop her if she can help it. Falling in love isn't her main concern, but she's open to it if that's how she ends up feeling. When she turns into a frog, her main complaint about it is that it gets in the way of her dream. Honestly, I'm fine with heroines falling in love, but we need more heroines like Tiana, who has a goal completely independent of a romantic partner and is determined to reach it whether she finds one or not. Also, her dad is dead, but she doesn't sit around moping about it. She misses him, of course, but he taught her that she needs to work for what she wants, and she's holding herself to that.

#11

LYRA BELACQUA/SILVERTONGUE

 

(From His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman)

Lyra is another one of those who starts out as a tough, no-one-can-mess-with-me type of heroine and transforms into a more emotionally complex young woman. She has a killer survival instinct that keeps her alive throughout the series and she has difficulty trusting people--but when she does trust someone, she loves that someone with all her heart. Seriously, she: escapes from her mother to join a band of gypsies, befriends a fully grown polar bear that should scare the crap out of any eleven-year-old, valiantly tries to protect her best friend Roger from death by her own father's hand and travels to the freaking underworld to visit him when she fails, finds the courage to leave her daemon on the opposite shore in the underworld even though it scares her to death, wanders through worlds she knows nothing about with mostly only her wits to guide her--I could go on for days. At the end of the series, Lyra is forever separated from someone she adores, but she accepts it. It devastates her, but she moves on. More heroines like Lyra, please.

#10

BLOSSOM

 

(From The Powerpuff Girls)

I would've put all three Powerpuff Girls here, but since that would fill three slots, I'm just putting my favorite. The Powerpuff Girls fight crime to protect their city of Townsville, but that only scratches the surface of what makes them strong. In the movie, all of Townsville turns against them because they see them as mutant, destructive freaks. When Townsville is overtaken by monkeys bent on taking over the world (I promise this show is good), what do the girls do? Tell those Townsville citizens to go to hell? No, they save everyone's asses, because they're good people. Several episodes showcase their integrity, determination, and dedication to justice as well. I'll use an example from the episode "Equal Fights": when a criminal convinces the girls that they should let her continue with her crime spree because she's an oppressed female, they point out (during an awesome speech about Susan B. Anthony) that if she wants both sexes to be treated equally, she should go to jail along with the male criminals. As for Blossom herself, she's the brains behind the team, always coming up with new strategies while managing to stay on top of her grades. True, she's in kindergarten...but it counts.

#9

VIOLET BAUDELAIRE

 (From A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket)

If your older sister is Violet Baudelaire, you can be sure you've got someone fighting for you, no matter what happens to you. Violet acts as a protective force for her brother and sister, but also as someone on their level, a member of their team. She gets the Baudelaires out of a multitude of messes by using her inventive mind--any time she ties up her hair to clear her thoughts, she can come up with some sort of homemade device that often saves the orphans' lives. Once, when her bookworm brother Klaus isn't around, she forces herself to take on his role, and reads a book she barely understands but that is the key to her family's survival. I love that she's an inventor. While I try to think of all skill sets and hobbies as gender neutral, society doesn't see it that way, and inventing/tinkering with machines is usually seen as a masculine pastime. Good for Violet for defying that stereotype and using it to keep herself, and her siblings, alive.

#8

VERITY

 (From Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein)

This is one where I refuse to give away very much, even the character's real name, because going in spoiler-free makes this reading experience infinitely better. Seriously, if you've read it, you know what I mean. Verity spends a portion of the novel as a prisoner of war in Nazi-occupied France. She's a tough, gutsy girl who fights for survival with everything she's got, even in the face of physical and psychological torture. You know those people who just seem alive with every fiber of their being, who express passion in their sense of humor, in their cheerfulness, in everything? Verity is like that, on top of being insanely clever and an affectionate, loyal friend. And then you get to the second half of the novel, and oh man, she gets so much better. Everything about the novel gets better. Just read it.

#7

 TOPH

 

(From Avatar: The Last Airbender)

On top of being physically and emotionally tough, Toph has a sensitive side. She doesn't like to show it much, but it's there. It's demonstrated in her moments when she's crushing on Sokka, and in an episode where a group of girls mock her when she has trouble expressing her femininity. In the latter case, she cries over it, but at the same time says, "I know who I am." Toph may be able to lift rocks and bend metal while simultaneously living with a disability (blindness), but it's this confidence in who she is that makes her strong to me. Besides, she's hilarious, has an infectious take-it-easy attitude, and stands up for what she believes in--which can be anything from protecting the people she loves to the right to have senseless fun. What more could you want not just in a female character, but in any character?

#6

KATARA

 

(From Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Katara gets a lot of hate, which I don't understand. She might be more high-strung and less outwardly tough than Toph, but she is also very human, very loving, and strong (physically and emotionally) in her own right. In fact, we see her overcome more adversity, both external and personal, than almost any other character in the series (just behind Aang and Zuko). She originally sucks at water bending, and it frustrates her easily, but she works on it and hones her skills. She refuses to comply with the Northern Water Tribe's insistence that a woman must not learn Water Bending for combat and resolves to take secret lessons. She fiercely defends the people she loves, but isn't afraid to call them out on their bullshit. What's more, she manages to forgive Zuko for the harm he caused her and her friends. Considering that she projects all her hate for the Fire Nation, whose troops killed her mother, onto Zuko, this is one of the hardest things for her to do emotionally. Let's not forget that she took on the maternal role in her family when her mother died. In my opinion, a maternal instinct shows great strength, whether the character is a biological mother or not. Speaking of which...

#5

MINERVA MCGONAGALL

 

(From the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

Also known as Professor McBadass. Look at this woman. She comes off as uptight and unfriendly at first, but then you get to know her throughout the series. She's extremely intelligent, enough to become an Animagus, which is difficult. She shows an incredible amount of loyalty to people who have earned her respect, including both Dumbledore and Harry. She's witty, such as when she basically tells Professor Umbridge to shut up while she's in her classroom in Order of the Phoenix--a bold and meaningful move, considering Umbridge is trying to take over the school at this point and McGonagall's sass acts as a form of rebellion. She's also got a surprising competitive streak, especially when it comes to the Quidditch Cup at Hogwarts--she gets all fired up if there's any chance Gryffindor might not win, which makes for some hilarious exchanges between her and Harry. In addition, she's maternal in her own way. She loves Harry and fights for his life, but her reasons differ from many others in the series. Several people love Harry because they loved his parents, or because he saved the world from Voldemort as a baby. I always got the impression that Harry had to work for McGonagall's love, and her affection for him grew because she witnessed his bravery, his love for his friends, and his modesty over seven years.

#4

MIDNA

 

(From The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)

I'll admit it: I have a soft spot for characters who present a tough exterior but feel a lot of tenderness and vulnerability. When Link meets Midna in the game, she insults his intelligence and his competence right off the bat. She offers to help him, but she's clearly using him to meet her own goals. Subtly over the course of the game, her attitude starts to change. She still mocks Link constantly, but you can tell she's growing fond of him. She and Link transition into more of a team than a girl and her tool, and what started off as her own selfish quest turns into a journey taken by two friends helping each other. Midna is extremely humbled when Zelda sacrifices something enormous for her--that's about the point where Midna reconsiders the motives behind her choices, and takes on a nobler role. Then (spoilers), at the end, when she travels back into the Twilight, she destroys the link between the Twilight and the World of Light so that the Twilight can never harm anyone again--despite knowing it will cut her off from Link forever. She does it without telling him, too, because she knows he'd try to stop her. She'll miss him, but she does the right thing. And all this wonderful character development happens while Midna maintains her wise-cracking personality. It's not in your face, and I love that.

#3

SERAPHINA

 

(From Seraphina by Rachel Hartman)

Here's a fantastic example of a heroine who isn't physically tough but is exceptionally strong. I really connected with Seraphina's character. She's one of the most human protagonists I've read in YA fiction for a while (ironically, considering she's half-dragon). To protect her safety and reputation, she must conceal the fact that she is half-dragon, a burden she hates but accepts. She is far from perfect--she self-mutilates, she's shy, she's awkward in social situations. But she is also boundlessly loving, and a lot of her strength comes out of her art. She's a musician, and her fondness for music jumps off every page of the book in the way she listens to music at events, handles her musical instrument, and remembers her dead mother (also a musician). Seraphina straddles the line between lack of confidence in her place in society and a firm understanding of who she is personally. She places others before herself and struggles with an awful lot of heartache. The whole thing is just beautifully written. Go read it.

#2

MULAN

 

(From Mulan)

You guys. She saved China. She wanted to find herself, but her chief reason for joining the army was to prevent her father from having to go, which would have meant his certain death. Like, the moment she realizes she can dress up as a man and go, she just does without hesitation. She might die, but whatever, because this is the right thing to do. What I really love about her, though, is how flawed she is despite her heroism. When she reaches the training camp, she realizes she's way in over her head and has no idea what she's doing. Does she give up? Hell no! I literally get chills every time Mulan fights her way to the top of the wooden pole during the "Be A Man" sequence. She battles her own incompetence until she reaches her goal. Also, she saves everyone by burying the Huns beneath an avalanche, thanks to some quick thinking on her part. She rescues her general while badly injured. And then she saves everyone AGAIN while using strategy to steal the Emperor back from Shan Yu, who she then blows up. Mulan, feel free to my best friend.

#1

HERMIONE GRANGER

 

(From the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling)

Putting Hermione as number one might be surprising to some people, considering she possesses no more physical strength than the average person and she has many, many moments of weakness. But that is part of her appeal. I saw a tumblr post once that pointed out Hermione is both a rational logician and passionately emotional, traits that are rarely combined in a female character. That post is absolutely right. There is enormous strength in both qualities, and it shows through Hermione during the series. Her brains get her, Harry and Ron out of plenty of perilous situations--she figures out what's attacking the school in Chamber of Secrets, she helps Harry avoid getting scorched to death by a dragon in Goblet of Fire, she organizes Dumbledore's Army during Order of the Phoenix, and she's the reason she, Harry and Ron are able to survive in the woods for so long during Deathly Hallows. But her heart aids her just as much as her head does. Her affection for Harry is what drives her to help him on his Horcrux hunt, her love for Hagrid motivates her to spend hours in the library researching how to prevent Buckbeak's execution, her belief in House Elf rights eventually leads to her fighting for them when she reaches adulthood and starts working at the Ministry. Hermione has knowledge and knows how to use it, but she also loves, she cries, she obsesses. And as a fellow bookworm and perfectionist, I will always count her among my favorite characters.

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The Only Thing I Know That's Keeping Me Alive

And that's the hope I have, the only thing I know that's keeping me alive. - Paramore, "Last Hope"

People have different reasons for why they write. I respect that. I also strive to be an empathetic human being who works to understand other people's perspectives. Sometimes, this is hard to do. Especially when I read about a writer who only wants to entertain, rather than instill meaning into his or her story. Especially when I read about a writer who has considered giving up writing altogether because his or her failures have become too frustrating. Not just giving up submitting to agents or publishers. Giving up writing itself.

Have I ever gotten frustrated with the writing process, or the editing process, or the rejection process? You bet. "Frustrated" is an understatement. Have I ever thought to myself that I suck, or that I'll never get anything published? Absolutely. Have I experienced moments of disillusionment with the publishing process/world? I can't imagine anyone in the writing and/or publishing world who hasn't.

Have I ever considered giving up writing?

About as many times as I've considered chopping off my arms and selling them on eBay. So, no.

(Although if someone I cared deeply about needed an arm and doctors invented some magical surgery in which arm donations worked, I would donate my arm a lot faster than I would give up writing).

I'm not one of those people who took up writing because it seemed like fun, or because I wasn't sure what else to do. No snobbiness meant there--if you're one of those people, great, and that's valid. It just isn't who I am. I'm one of the (probably) thousands of people who writes because it saved my life. Without writing, I don't know where I would be right now, emotionally or academically. I don't know who I would be. I am writing. Writing is me.

When I started really researching the writing craft, around the time I started getting ideas for my first novel (I wanted to do the thing right, see), I gathered one piece of advice that seemed to permeate all the different lists of tricks, discussions, and books I read about writing: be honest. Be truthful. That's the core of writing for me. What does that mean, exactly, especially when you're writing a novel, which by definition is approximately 300 pages of something that never really happened?

It means you have to mean every word. Every sentence must stay true to your character's personality, emotional state, circumstances, and context. Every page must fall into line with some facet of human existence that you know to be true for at least one person, whether you experienced it yourself, watched another person go through it, or even scooped it up from a book or movie. Every chapter must paint a picture that convinces the reader he/she can touch, taste, smell, and breathe the fictional world you've created. Every book must make a reader believe, make them feel the truth enveloping the core of the book.

So, before I could write something real, I had to look at my own life. I had to examine truths. There were easier truths, like what my opinion was on the best possible way to describe a rose (yes, truths can be subjective). But there were also harder truths. I had to look at parts of my own reality that were broken and figure out why. I had to accept my own truths. I had to dig into those truths, pin them under a microscope, and acknowledge that sometimes, after hours of inspection, I would still have no idea what I was looking at or why.

Many of these truths changed my life, and hurt. Really hurt. But if it weren't for writing, if it weren't for the catalyst that made me start looking at the world around me so I could write about another, I might still be living in ignorance. I might still be sad and not know why. My life would be tremendously different.

Four years ago, I sunk into a depression because of something going on in my life. The only positive things I felt like I had were Paramore's third album brand new eyes (Oh, gee, now you see where the attachment comes from!) and my second novel. The depression was bad, but it would have been a million times worse if I didn't have my writing, if I didn't have an extended goal, if I didn't have my characters. I wrote 100,000 words in four months during that depression. That is huge for me, a chronic slow drafter.

What is it about writing, then, that saves me, besides helping me discover my own truths? If I'm upset and have enough sense to write myself out of my sadness (because sometimes I'm an idiot who insists she's too upset to write. Uh huh. That's like saying "I'm too hungry to eat."), something happens. Dozens of times, I've listen to my sniffles slowly die down as I become more absorbed in the story. My problems vanish. My pain evaporates. Slowly, they are eclipsed by problems and pain belonging to other people. My issues don't matter right now, because so-and-so is miserable about such-and-such, and he/she needs me to transcribe that sorrow into words. No one else can do it. And sure, these people aren't real (ouch, my heart). But their emotional experiences are. Millions of people throughout history have felt the same fear and shame one of my gay characters feels about coming out of the closet. Countless people have experienced feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, recklessness. This is how my characters are each, individually, thousand of nuggets of truth.

Yes, I suppose you could aim to write purely for entertainment. But a book can never be just that, at least not for everyone in the world. No matter what, your book will reveal conscious, subconscious, and unconscious aspects of your psyche. The words you choose will reveal your background, your upbringing, your values. Your characters' moral codes will reflect societal paradigms, expectations, realities. Pure and mindless entertainment, at least when it comes to fiction, does not and cannot exist.

The Paramore quote I posted at the top of this entry might seem melodramatic. Maybe it is. But it's how I feel about writing. I might not literally be dead if I didn't have writing. But I might not be as emotionally aware. I might feel like one of the thousands of helpless people who aren't sure why they're on this planet (if this is you--you'll find it, I promise, as long as you keep looking). I might not be as honest with myself as I am.

No one can tell me I'm not meant to write. I feel it in my bloodstream. Sure, someone can time travel from the future to tell me I'll never get recognition, and no one outside my family and friends will ever read my words. To that I say, so the hell what?

I might never publish a word, but I know I'm here to write until I die.

-Morgan

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What Harry Potter Meant to My Childhood

This is a rather spontaneous post about how total immersion in a fictional world, its characters, its nuances and finer details, can create unforgettable meanings in one's life. It's something I want to do with my fiction. I want to give my readers a place they can go that not only makes them happy, but feels familiar. I want them to be comfortable there and greet my characters as old friends. And I want to provide this service because it happened to me first, and to millions of people across the world.

This is sparked by the fact that I just watched the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I must have watched that ending, where Harry sends his second son off to Hogwarts for the first time, five times. I've cried every single time. Now, I don't usually cry at movies. In fact, I make an effort not to. For whatever reason, I feel bashful about it. So why does this movie pull at my heartstrings?

That question seems to puzzle a lot of people, especially people who are not part of my generation. But fellow Harry Potter fans, the ones who grew up along with it, don't have to ask why. The following is my personal Harry Potter journey in semi-chronological order, a.k.a. large chunks of my childhood, and might shed some light on the phenomenon for those on the outside looking in:

• Age six or seven, start to learn that Harry Potter is a thing
• Decide I'm going to hate Harry Potter since everyone else loves it, because I'm a pretentious little hipster
• Age eight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes out in theaters. I think, why not, I'll see it
• Life alters forever
• Go home, read HP and the SS in six days (which seemed like a really short amount of time for me)
• Devour the book versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Start a "Harry Potter Club" with my fellow third graders, in which we are all Gryffindors with names, our own wand cores, our own magical pets, our own backstories, our own British accents. This game is played consistently at recess and lunch every day
• Get the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone video game for PC, beat it in two months and feel like conquering Voldemort = conquering the world
• Age nine, get a video camera and invent "The Ron and Hermione Show," in which I play Hermione and my sister plays Ron in a number of short episodes, in which Ron and Hermione take part in many wacky shenanigans. My three-year-old brother makes occasional cameos as Harry. The first episode is called "The Daring Third Floor Corridor"
• For Halloween, I dress up as Hermione, my sister as Ron, my friend as Harry. I get my mom to be McGonagall, my dad Hagrid, my friend's dad Dumbledore, etc.
• My dad knows someone at Warner Brothers and gets us a Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets poster, which is subsequently framed
• Age ten, attend my first midnight release for a book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Friend and I stay up late reading, I flip to the end to see who dies because I'm scared and can't take it
• Around this time, siblings and I invent the "Harry Potter School" game. This consists of making fake schedules, teaching fake lessons (Herbology, Potions, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, and more), creating fake tests, giving out fake grades. Some of the best memories of my childhood ensue
• Eleventh birthday is Harry Potter themed. Everyone dresses up, everyone gets sorted
• Age eleven, I'm thrilled to have a day off from filming The Pacifier because that means we can go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• I'm still an enthusiastic player of Harry Potter video games, although now I play them primarily on PS2. The Prisoner of Azkaban one is the best one, I play that, re-play Chamber of Secrets. A seven-year-long tradition of always playing Harry Potter PS2 games when I'm home sick begins
• Age twelve, start writing horrible Harry Potter fanfiction
• I discover Mugglenet
• I'm freaking out because Cheaper by the Dozen 2 filming is running late, and it's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince release night, and the bookstore is like two hours away. Finally get the book and read it in three days, Steve Martin sees I'm almost done by Monday and asks if I ate or slept all weekend
• Create game with siblings that involves pretending our pool is the Black Lake and that we're Harry Potter characters saving each other
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie is released
• Take part in Mugglenet caption contests
• The "Ron and Hermione" show is still going strong by this point
• JK Rowling admits Ron and Hermione are in love with each other, Harry/Hermione fans and Ron/Hermione fans explode and declare Internet war against each other (I'm on the Ron/Hermione side)
• I print out several pieces of fan art and an essay or two in support of Ron and Hermione and make a shrine on my bedroom door
• Re-read every book a million times
• Age thirteen, I start a Harry Potter RPG site, get several regular posters, become a mini online family, am still friends with some of them (Hi Logan!)
• Age fourteen, I start writing Harry Potter fanfiction that is actually not bad, turns into a story that eventually gets 400 reviews and loyal followers, I learn more about writing with self-imposed deadlines and writing in general (writing this extended fanfiction prepares me for my future novel-writing endeavors)
• I spend hours upon hours on Harry Potter websites speculating about the final book. I also spend hours upon hours reading Harry Potter fanfiction
• Attend a live Mugglenet podcast, get a "Snape is Loyal" sticker signed by the Mugglenet founder
• See Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in theaters
• I attend the midnight release for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at my local Borders (RIP), all decked out in Hermione gear. The next three days are spent reading. A very long mourning period for Fred Weasley and for the books in general ensues
• I find online fanart in which Fred never actually dies and use it to cope
• I plan out a fanfiction where Fred was in a coma all along (never gets written)
• I join a Harry Potter RPG website (the one I started has long since died), have a lot of fun, get banned from the site because I complained about the way the site was run, haters gonna hate
• Start my own fantasy novels, crafted with hyper-awareness about my strong Harry Potter influence and a determination to make it as different from Harry Potter as possible
• Age fifteen, am in a photo shoot for Hannah Montana, pretty much the only part of my interview that makes it into the magazine is that I'm a Harry Potter fan (victory)
• Still asking for Harry Potter merchandise for Christmas
• Age sixteen, find out an early screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is happening in my town. Get dressed in HP gear, dress my New York friend (who's visiting) as a Ravenclaw, attend the screening with other Potterheads
• Go to my friend's house for the first time and see his room is decked out all Harry Potter, I approve. Friend later becomes boyfriend
• Age seventeen, see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One, hasn't sunk in that it's almost over
• Age eighteen, summer before I leave home for college, see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two

I did my Pottering. Ten years of it. And every fellow Harry Potter fan has a story like this one. They all know what it felt like to have a Potter-filled childhood. They all suspect that this timeline doesn't cover nearly everything, and they're right.

So, why do I cry at the end of the final Harry Potter movie? Because the final scene is all this being carried away by the Hogwarts Express. All of it, to the sound of the John Williams-composed song that first met my ears when I was eight, sitting in a theater with eyes wide, blown away.

(This nostalgic post dedicated to my sister Wendy York, a.k.a. Ron Weasley, who is graduating high school today).

-Morgan

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Artistic Growth, In Writing and in All Forms of Art

Prepare yourselves. I'm about to get a little rambly (though if you've been following this blog, I assume that's a thing you're okay with?).

I know some people like consistency. When they listen to an album they like, watch a movie they enjoy, or read their favorite book, they hope to see more of something similar from the musician, director, or writer who produced it. It makes sense from a logical standpoint. After all, I eagerly eat chocolate because I have eaten chocolate in the past and it has proven to my taste buds time and time again that it is delicious. The difference with chocolate, though, is that it is a generic product produced by scores of companies all over the world, and has been for some time. Unless it's being featured on the food channel, chocolate is not generally considered a form of art. And when it comes to art, consumers must be flexible.

The recent release of the new Paramore album [Wikipedia link] is what got me thinking about artistic growth, but, since I'm a fan of multiple types of artists, as most people are, it's popped into my head more than a couple of times (more on that later). For those who don't know, this album, though it is the band's fourth, is the first album Paramore created without two of its original founding members, former guitarist Josh Farro and former drummer Zac Farro. Both Farros brought wonderful things to the band--Josh was responsible for writing many of the songs that have touched my heart, and Zac's an infectious drummer--so it was inevitable that this album would be different.

Boy, is it ever. They're exploring multiple genres in this album and the lyrics have a kind of optimism that, while it bubbled under the surface of their third album especially, nobody's ever seen from them before. I never thought I'd hear a ukelele or a gospel choir in a Paramore song before giving this album a listen. And I can't describe the unadulterated joy this album brought me the first time I heard it all the way through.

I was just as excited when they released their third album, brand new eyes, in 2009. But I remember that, while I enjoyed the songs immensely, I had trouble telling many of them apart. Only after a couple weeks could I hear the beginning of a song and go, "Okay, this is 'Looking Up,' not 'Where the Lines Overlap'." With this album, the self-titled Paramore, I know what song I'm listening to instantaneously, and I adore almost every one of them. I imagine part of why I'm so obsessed with this album is because I know it took risk to make it. They needed to grow as artists and, while they knew their experiment might not work out, they gave it a try, anyway. I admire that in any artist.

Hundreds of Facebook commenters don't agree with me. I won't post any actual quotes so as not to oust anyone, but here are some examples that capture the gist:

"What the hell is this pop shit? Bring back the Farros!"

"Wow, what happened to the REAL Paramore?"

"Guys, it's over. Paramore no longer exists. They've totally sold out."

And, my very favorite: "How could they do this to their fans?!"

Uhh, okay. Neil Gaiman once wrote a wonderful blog post called "Entitlement Issues" [link to Neil Gaiman's journal] when someone asked him if authors owe it to their writers to speed up the process of finishing their books, speaking specifically of George R. R. Martin, author of the Song of Ice and Fire series. Here's an excerpt from Gaiman's response:

Look, this may not be palatable, Gareth, and I keep trying to come up with a better way to put it, but the simplicity of things, at least from my perspective is this:

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now.

Though Gaiman was speaking about fans expecting artists to meet certain deadlines, I believe this applies to artistic growth as well. Of course any good artist cares about his or her fans--without the fans, the artist wouldn't have success. Of course they want to make the fans happy. But that does not mean the artist should be expected to compromise whatever vision they may have for their art in order to please others. The ideal is when what the fans want and what the artist wants align with one another, which, in the case of Paramore, actually seems to have happened [link to billboard.com article]. But sometimes they don't, and the (good) artist produces whatever's bursting from their soul either way. Power to them.

Obviously, plenty of people disagree with this. That's fine. Personally, complaints about how an artist has "changed" drive me crazy. In fact, if I keep up with an artist and I don't see any growth whatsoever after a while, if I'm just listening to/watching/reading the same old thing over and over, I lose patience with that artist. Having some recurring themes across the years is one thing, and can be fun to track. Producing the same artistic product over a lengthy period of time is tedious and pointless. This probably comes from the same part of my personality that rejects the idea of sticking to one genre for my entire life. There's a reason that after I finish my fantasy series, I desperately want to write a contemporary novel. I don't like boxes very much, or figurative ones, anyway.

A similar thing happened in September when J.K. Rowling released The Casual Vacancy. Everyone was all excited that J.K. Rowling had written something else. I know people who wished their local Barnes and Noble was throwing a midnight release party for it. What happened when they read it, or started reading it? "This isn't Harry Potter!" they exclaimed. Did...did you expect it to be? Did you not see the title? Or the description? Or the fact that it is in the adult section? What the hell did you think was going to happen? You'd open the book and the title page would be like, "Surprise! This book is actually called Harry Potter and the Casual Vacancy. Here's a drawing by Mary Grandpré." ?

And I loved The Casual Vacancy. I got attached to several of the characters and had trouble sleeping the night I finished because the ending shook me up so much. It proved to me that Rowling is a powerful writer who is capable of branching out. Sure, when Deathly Hallows came out, I had expectations. I wanted desperately to read the scene where Ron and Hermione finally kissed. What would I have done if she hadn't included that scene? I probably would have thrown a fit, but that's because I was fourteen years old and ridiculous. Regardless, there would have been nothing I could have done about it. If Rowling didn't write it, it meant it wasn't part of her vision. And every artist has a right to putting his or her vision out there. It doesn't mean they're not grateful for their fans. In fact, usually it's their way of saying, "Thank you for loving my work! Here's another thing I poured my heart into, and I hope you love this one, too!"

Essentially, let people do what they love. For all I know, the next Legend of Zelda game could completely toss out their usual get-a-cool-item-in-a-dungeon-and-use-it-to-beat-the-boss formula and give Link a machine gun, or Paramore's next album could be made up entirely of rap songs. What is the worst that happens to me? I don't like the game or album, am a little disappointed, and don't buy it. Then, oh my god, my life continues. If you are an artist taking a risk for the sake of growth, I respect you immensely, and I hope I can have the courage to do the same all throughout my life.

Also, will people shut up about Hayley Williams' (lead singer of Paramore) bangs? She could shave her head and tattoo a gorilla on it for all I care, because her hair doesn't make the music I love.

-Morgan

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