Your Writing Coach

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech was the most poetic book of prose I'd ever read. "The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in." I didn't know books could sound like that. But it's a coming of age book about a girl from the east coast of the US sailing across the Atlantic to meet her grandfather. It goes to some deep places, and I'd love to see it taught in middle schools.

Here's some fantastic T. Kingfisher stories:

- Snow White with an emphasis on the science of poison and the horror of mirrors.

- Yes grandma was awful and racist, but she was right about the nightmare creatures who want to eat you. Good thing you're an entomologist!

- The House of Usher with a badass nonbinary soldier and a differently badass mycologist.

- Just because a kid is the only one who could do it doesn't mean it was right to make them. (This applies to at least three of her books.)

- It's helpful to know an immortal warrior, bound to protect you at all costs. It's better to know a good lawyer.

- Actually, being pedantic ALWAYS helps. (This is true for every book.)

girl. I am holding you so gently right now. this is abject loneliness that you're subjecting yourself to. reading other people's thoughts doesn't take away from your own perspective, but what it gives you is the words to express yourself so that you will understand you. It gives you the literary vocabulary (images! symbols! metaphors! comparisons! pacing!) of your culture/s of choice, and shows you how use them to make sense of what you feel and what want to say, and then express it in a way that other people will understand you too. Literature isn't a rally where there's one voice blaring out for others to listen, it's a conversation. You're writing to be read. You and your readers will need a common language. You acquire that language by reading widely. And then not only do you get better at expressing your feelings to others, you find others who feel the same, and suddenly the world's a greater and more beautiful place where you can go, "you too?! I thought it was just me!"

I promise this is not taking one whit of your individuality away. You might be exposing yourself to all of those outside influences but the I in the centre, the mind that decides and interacts and feels, that's the voice that will always be unique. You just gotta channel it in a way that can be understood.

Finding all the paragraphs where you used some hyper-specific word more than once

Rearranging paragraphs that you swear you wrote in the right order but turned out to be totally backwards

Going for a walk, coming up with the perfect line, and forgetting it as soon as you get home and open your laptop

Creating a separate document where you can dump all of those nice sentences that no longer fit in anywhere

“You feel the bulge in his pants” - implies that you are feeling some guy’s penis, may be sexy depending on context

the good news: I know my process enough to recognize this as the slump that I hit in everything I write when it's like three-quarters-ish done

the bad news: the only way out is through

the good news: I do know the way out!

This ends up being true for a lot of YA books where the teenager is the chosen solution to a problem because they need to be for plot reasons, but there is no actual logical reason why anyone would be relying on them to solve this problem (or often even letting them get close to this problem). No, this kid can't work for the FBI or the Secret Service. No, this twelve-year-old won't be a more accomplished soldier than a fully-trained servicemember. No, this kid isn't allowed to practice medicine.

And you can work around this by presenting a reason for them to be involved despite being less qualified--usually that they put themselves in a situation, despite the adults around them, but also that there is something else that makes them suited to a job/role despite their other lack of qualifications (we need someone who can blend in, etc.).

But it's also true for a lot of adult books. I'm reading a book where the ER doctor/medical professor First Gentleman is going to lead the response to a plane full of people who potentially have Marburg virus, and even ignoring the fact that he wouldn't be allowed within a thousand feet of that plane by the Secret Service, that also fundamentally just does not make sense with how U.S. pandemic and quarantine response work (or even how medicine works--an ER doctor is generally not an infecious disease specialist). It's waved away for plot reasons--but it also represents a failure of the plot as a whole.

Why is your character the one who is trying to solve this problem? Is it their job? If it's not their job, what does it mean for the story for them to be trying to solve a problem that they aren't qualified for, may not have access to, and/or aren't allowed to deal with?

Another option that you can consider is that you can write stories where the main character isn't necessarily the only one who can save the day--they're just the only one who is saving the day. When I think about Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce, one of the main things about Kel is that she is determined to fix things to the point of hurting her, and so other people could (and sometimes do) fix things, but she's often the one fixing things because she's the one who says "i'm going to fix this" and then works until she does.

And sometimes the answer is that the kid is a bandaid. It can be "we have no other options so we're stuck with this kid." It can be "we need five people and the fifth person is a half-trained twelve-year-old so here we go I guess." It can be "our previous option died so I guess we're stuck with their apprentice."

My take: if the plot is thrilling, if the characters are compelling, if the premise is intriguing, if the whole thing is entertaining, the audience will suspend disbelief.

...While adding only that the emphasis in all these books lies in the characters (one or another of them) being willing to step up: and the only thing that makes them Chosen Ones is their choice to get involved. It's no accident that all through the series, choice—lower case or Capital C—is such an issue.

And this is possibly yet another way that the Young Wizards books are the godchildren of the Middle Kingdoms series. The characters in that older universe know—because it's information that the Creatress of their world has explicitly shared with them—that they are, singly and (very) jointly, weapons forged / being forged to a purpose; and they've consented to this. The YW books shift this setup from a statement to a question. What happens when the standard operating practices for wizardry require similar consent, but (in terms of the characters' stories) much earlier? And how do the complexities of such a situation unfold?

It's about a young girl who regularly puts on a beret and a false mustache to pose as an adult detective and solve silly but very real murders. And of course because of the genre this absurd premise works perfectly and no one ever sees through her disguise. (It's just a hilarious series. A little hard to get in America but worth it. Also it has surprisingly good mysteries? I've yet to completely solve one before the reveal.)

On a very different note, I kinda really like unqualified protagonists in survival settings. Books like Hatchet, Alone, and The Girl Who Owned a City are captivating BECAUSE these kids shouldn't be in this situation and they have to learn how to deal with an impossible situation FAST. Animorphs was also great for that. Every book had those kids acknowledge that it was unfair they were the only ones who could protect humanity and they were constantly on the lookout for trustworthy adults to pass it off to!

Another angle for green movements - a lot of green movements have been skewed into ecofascism, dieting and various other capitalist interests. We risk this too, but with work, this is a path those who seek to live alongside the earth without falling into a cult or buying a bunch of crap.

Getting a hobby- I've seen so much wonderful textile work, eco- gardening and people developing skills - particularly during events like action week. For a world so focused on consumption, this is lifechanging. I'm learning hobby electronics and now I can fix my friends phones. That is tangible and immediate change. Graffiti and sewing go hand in hand here.

Gathering social groups and communities of likeminded folks - ALL OVER THE WORLD. The support network it creates makes forming structured movemements easier. Punks have known this since forever. Small music venues, library book clubs, and political groups all because of random groupchats. [I'll admit, forming structure should become a priority - with WORK, TIME and TRUST, it's happening.]