Water - it's a metaphor.

My house became a riverfront property this weekend.

In 2011, just about this time of year, Brisbane was hit with ferocious floods. After weeks of heavy rain, overflowing dam, clogged drains and rising river, water took it's hold on the suburbs. The house I live in now is two story and the water was above the second floor. Other homes went right under. People trapped had to climb up onto their roof and wait for help. Some locations had no warning, with flash floods rushing through, wiping out buildings, moving vehicles and claiming lives.

This weekend the floods hit Brisbane again. Although our street flooded, it was no where near as bad as 2011. We were not in any danger. The water rose with the high tides and receded again when the tide went out. Our biggest inconvenience was a loss of power for a couple of days. While enjoying a marathon of board and card games, I gave some contemplation to water. It's a huge part of life and often a significant theme in fiction. Water is a metaphor.

Various Water Metaphors:

Life - Man can live without food longer than he can water. Our existence begins and grows within a womb of water (and other fluids, but you get the idea). Scenes of a dying man in the desert often include a mirage and that mirage always includes water. In apocalyptic stories such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, survivors migrate towards large bodies of water or the ocean.

Judgement - If you want a biblical theme, water cleanses sin. It washes it away. Water is also used to divide the sinful and the pure. Rain is used as a judgement from God (although sometimes that rain comes as frogs instead of water). God used a flood to wash away his mistakes. The bible instructs followers to be baptised in water to symbolise their resurrection as a Christian. But it's not just biblical. Water is used to conceal a sin, bodies are submerged in water (like in Dexter) and rise to expose sins. On pirate ships, traitors are made to walk the plank.

Sex - Water can be lust. Sailors, pirates, and adventurous characters are drawn to the ocean, their desire strong enough to risk death. Sirens and mermaids lure men into the water. In horror movies, victims are often involved in sexual acts near or in water when they are attacked. In seduction films, women are often shown trailing their long painted nails through water to entice a lover. Water is fluid, it's wet, the connection with sex is pretty obvious.

Conquering Nature - In many adventure stories, water is used to show man's ability to conquer nature, such as surfing, sailing, swimming, or whaling. Herman Melville's Moby Dick focuses on one man's obsession with besting a rival sea creature. Survival stories (there's a new film out now based on a true life Tsunami story) show the flip side of man's battle against the elements.  Disaster stories often show man's inability to conquer nature, but his determination to survive it.

Time - Water can rush quickly through rapids, flow along a river or be still on a pond. Water moves at its own pace and can affect the pace of a story. It can represent the way time moves depending on our own state. In the 1985 film Cocoon, special alien water reversed time for those who swam in it. Ice can freeze time, as it does for a character in the film, Encino Man.

Secrets - Water hides things. Sometimes we use it to hide our secrets (bodies, precious jewels tossed off the Titanic, or evidence of an affair). Other times the water hides things from us (lurking crocodiles, oversized sharks on a revenge fury, treasure... the Titanic). Rain makes the view from a window unclear. Water is not always translucent, it can be murky. 

Emotion -  Tears, rain, running water, these can all reflect sadness and are often used to show visually the misery of someone heartbroken or grieving. Water can be isolating as well, physically by creating an island or a barrier, but this could also reflect the emotional isolation of the character.

Can you think of any other metaphors for water? Do you have a continuing theme in your fiction, a natural element, a colour, a song? In Warracknabeal Kids I have fire as a reoccurring theme, but I'm keen to challenge myself to write a short story with water as a metaphor.

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Why You Don't Want to be a Perfect Writer

Ray Bradbury teaches me to focus on detail.

I've come across writers dismissing writing classes as a waste of time.

I'm wondering if those people are attending the right workshops, or if they're attending with the best attitude? Being a course junkie, I've seen the usual personality types that come to courses and there's always a few people that are terrified of 'failing' the activities. They're certain they'll be the worst in the class and humiliate themselves. Often they won't read out their work, or participate in discussions. They'll sit up the back and build an invisible forcefield around themselves and it works. But it doesn't just stop humiliation getting through, it prevents feedback, encouragement and growth in their craft.

At the other end of the spectrum are the students who need to come first at everything. They're incredibly competitive and can sometimes be harsh with critiques (both receiving and giving). They'll sign up for a beginners cooking class, even if they're a seasoned chef because they want to come home after every class and say, 'I really wowed them tonight, I'm way better than the teacher'. They walk away reassured, but haven't pushed themselves outside their comfort zone, as a result their writing hasn't had a chance for growth.

I don't want to be the best writer, and I'm not afraid of being the worst. I've written a lot of crappy stuff. In fact, in writing workshops, on the spur of the moment, all my writing is clunky and crappy. But I'm learning and improving. I don't want to be the best writer, I want to be the most-improved. I don't believe the sum is greater than the parts (well okay I do, 'cause the maths people insist but only if by greater they mean more). More is not better, it's just more. I don't want to be the best writer, I want to be the best writer I can be today. And I want that level to be way lower than it will be next month. 

I read authors' works and acknowledge how much better they are at sentence structure, description, dialogue, weaving themes. Then I put aside my jealousy and celebrate their skill. Talent you're born with, but skill can only be acquired by working at it. So, I work at it.

I'm using short fiction to tighten my writing style and I've been studying Ray Bradbury's stories. Simple, approachable, magical. I'm practicing zooming in on a small detail, to make the story come alive, the way Bradbury does. I've also challenged myself to write in second person, because he pulled it off so beautifully in one of his stories.

I hope as writers you can feel proud of your progress and excited about the lessons to come. Embrace the learning. You don't have to take on writing classes to learn, there are many ways, but writing classes can still be a good source of information.

What challenges are you going to tackle to push your writing?

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Read Books on Writing

ML Swift is hosting the Progressive Book Club

I don't join book clubs. Inevitably if I find a book boring, everyone else in the club finds it literary genius. Reading is solo for me, personal. But (well of course there had to be a 'but', otherwise this would be a short gripe post), I've joined an online book club and you should too.

Why? The Progressive Book Club will be reading and discussing books on the craft of writing. If you're anything like me, you love buying books on writing. I've over 50 of them on my shelf. The only thing is reading those books is a whole different matter. I usually start and something shiny distracts me. Then they sit, getting dusty on my shelf, little bookmarks crying softly half-way through chapter three.

Because you'll be discussing the book, you'll want to finish it. You don't have to read every book suggested, just the ones that interest you. Hey, if you don't get around to reading one, you can still find out what everyone else thought of the book. It's just once a month, you can join at any time, you'll learn more about writing and connect with writerly friends.

So sign up at ML Swift's page today! Or use the linky thingy at the bottom of this post:

Our first book is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

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Writing for Reluctant Readers (and getting them to read), Part Two

If you missed part one of this post, you can see it here: Writing for Reluctant Readers Part 1

Last week I covered different writing techniques and styles for writing for kids who don't enjoy reading. I'm also including tactics to encourage kids to read and my book suggestions for reluctant readers. As a parent, teacher and writer, encouraging independent literacy is important to me. Reading is a powerful tool, it can entertain, educate and inform.

Most writers are keen readers, so it's easy to overlook the many kids that struggle with reading and therefore don't get any enjoyment out of persevering though what they see as a chore. If you can change that, you can change a child's world.

Graphic novels

My eldest daughter struggled with reading at the age of ten. Our home is filled with kids books and every opportunity is given for the kids to read whenever they want. That was the problem--she didn't want. I tried giving her some classics to read and she hated them. What she did love was graphic novels. We got her favourite (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and she devoured it. There is text to read, but the images help kids follow the story. It's a good starting place for reluctant or struggling readers. There is a need to move on though, and we would reward our daughter with a new graphic novel every time she finished a text novel (of her choice). She loves reading now, enjoying stories like Of Mice and Men, but also still enjoys graphic novels, especially manga.

Combination graphic and text novels
This can be a good next step from comic books. There are novels that combine illustrated comics with text chapters. In Malice by Chris Wooding, the text novel converts to graphic novel when the kids enter a magical but scary world. 

Electronics
Kids love gadgets. Despite early talk that ebooks would kill books, I believe Kindles, Kobos and iPads have made reading cool again. One of my most popular creative writing classes is when I bring in iPhones, iPads and Kindles for the kids to play with and discover new ways of accessing books. They love it. Many whip out their iPods and iPhones and start downloading the Kindle app right away. You could take this a step further and create your book as an app. Mix in games, music, videos--you're limited only by your imagination! Blue Quoll create fantastic app books for younger readers (picture books), check out the trailer for Mr Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes:

Interactivity
In the era of online gaming, kids want interaction. You could have games embedded within your story, codes to break or mysteries to solve. Another style of storytelling that's making a comeback is 'choose your own adventures'--readers get a choice at the end of critical chapters, will the protagonist turn left and take on the fire-breathing dragon, or right and attempt to rescue their best friend from the dungeon? Kids can read the same book several times and get different stories. I'm plotting out one of these kind of stories.
Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman combines text and videos.

Contemporary

Language is an evolving creature. Even stories written only twenty years ago can be unappealing to new young readers. It's enough of a step to get them to read a book, you don't want them to struggle with the colloquials of a bygone time. They may rush to C S Lewis once they have the reading bug, but initially try contemporary novel that use lingo and technology familiar to the reader. Both Gabrielle Lord's Conspiracy 365 series and Christine Harris' Raven Lucas series are modern day adventure books. 

   

Age appropriate

Generally kids will read about characters their own age and older--not younger. Younger is about little kids (no matter what age, this is how a 9yr old feels about an 8yr old and how a 14yr old feels about a 13yr old). They don't want to read little kid books. They want to read books for their own age group even if their reading skill is not at the 'average' for their age group.

Audiobooks

This is a great way to get kids who won't read hooked on stories. Then they may want to push that further by reading their own books. For struggling readers you can combined print text with audio, kids can read along to a huge choice of books. It's pretty easy to get your book made into an audiobook these days with sites like Audible. You can narrate your own story or (if you have a dodgy reading voice like me) hire someone to narrate it. There's plenty of talent out there, like Luke Smith (my talented brother): 
http://www.lukesmithvt.com

Clear story lines. 
Ambiguous metaphors and casts of thousands don't belong in a beginner reader's novel. You might love Game of Thrones or The Stand, but keeping to just a couple of characters and no more than two locations is a lot easier to follow. Teen boys enjoy Mathew Reilly's action books, and they start off with quite a few characters, but hey, most get killed off pretty quick.

That wraps up my two part series on writing for reluctant readers. Do you have a favourite book for struggling readers? Share it with us in the comments! And if you think this post is helpful, feel free to share it.

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Writing for Reluctant Readers (and getting them to read!), Part One

I wrote My Zombie Dog with reluctant readers in mind. I had plenty in my classroom to motivate me. I wanted to share with you all the advice and help I've found for reluctant readers. There is so much information available, I've split this into two posts, here is part one:

Children's literacy is important to me. Although I was an early reader devouring adult novels from a young age, I'm well aware that many kids struggle to catch on to the reading bug. There can be many reasons for this, but I've come across many kids who don't read because they feel they're not very good at it (which could stem from not enough practice or from a reading/literacy/sight disorder). Nobody enjoys pursuing activities they're not good at. This can be a bit of a cycle when more practice can help improve reading technique and lead towards reading enjoyment, but lack of interest/enjoyment leads to not practicing.

If you want to write for reluctant readers (and they're not just boys), or you want to find suitable books for your reluctant reader, here are some suggestions I've found valuable:

Fast paced books

Kids want stuff to happen in their books. Not just metaphorical stuff, thinking, planning, reflecting--they want the protagonist to DO stuff. Take action, make things happen. How many scenes involve the main character running? Really running for their life?

Daniel X by James Patterson - kid gets gut-shot. I know, you think this is disturbing, but this kid is an alien with super-healing powers and boys just love the fighting action in this novel.

Humour

Who doesn't like to laugh? The best part is kids like all sorts of humour. If you don't think you can come up with the witty one-liners, try some slapstick humour. There are rules to writing humour (you want your character to sound funny, not cruel). If you want more tips on funny characters, see a previous post J is for Jester.
The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander is a parody of The Godfather. I like this concept because kids get a funny story, but are introduced to a more advanced story.

Mystery

I've found this usually appeals to girls more than boys. They like a story they can solve before the protagonist does. The Maggie Brooklyn Mystery series books are short, easy to solve and have dogs in them. Kids like dogs.

Familiarity

Most avid readers wouldn't dream of watching the film before reading the book, but for kids who find novels daunting, previous knowledge of the plot, character intentions, and even visual aids for setting, can help them settle into a novel. Although Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton may be a bit advanced for most kids, you can now get action series books set in the world of Jurassic Park. Watch the film, then read the book?

Short chapters

Keeping chapters short and using chapter numbers (not just titles) allows kids to quickly progress through the story and be able to measure their success ('Wow, I'm up to Chapter 7 already!'). James Patterson is a master at this technique.

Short Stories
This can be a great way to introduce kids to reading without the commitment of a full novel. My kids both loved Chris Priestley's Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. Short and scary is a good combination! (You can read their review at Paper Dolls)

Now you've just got to get them to read...

Novalties

Lenny's World covered an awesome program involving kids reading to dogs. Specially trained dogs listen to kids reading books. Reading aloud helps a child develop their reading skills, as it's easy to miss words when you read to yourself. To save kids the anguish of reading in front of a parent or teacher, try getting them to read to their pet. Dogs don't judge.

Visit Lenny's post here: Reading To Dogs

Alice in Zombieland might give the dog nightmares Matilda!

I'll have lots more tips on writing for reluctant readers (and getting them to read) next week in part two! Do you have any reluctant readers at home? Any tips on how you trick/coerce/bribe them to read?

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2013 - Year of the Writer

I'm declaring it for all of us

For my Insecure Writer's Support Group post, I'm taking my insecurities and creating myself a resolution list from them. So for 2013 I intend to:

• Edit - I've signed up for Year of the Edit, a course offered by the Queensland Writer's Centre. Editing can seem seem like an overwhelming task, fixing a story, the structure, character motivations... it always scares me a little when I begin. But to be honest, once I get started, rewrites are my favourite part of writing a novel because that's when I find my themes, motifs and hidden plot lines. I have at least four novels to edit this year.
• Improve my writing - This is always on my list, but this year I'm focusing on grammar to strengthen my writing. I'm working through workbooks and have a great friend who's very clever when it comes to grammar.
• Create Classroom resources - I do this anyway when I go to schools and run creative writing workshops or discuss my book. I'd like to make free classroom resources relating to my novels available by creating professional PDFs and putting a link to them up on my website. 
• Increase income/reduce expenditure - I've got a few big goals I'll need to save for. One of my goals is to have a weekender shack somewhere (beachside or national park area) that can double as my writer's retreat. 
• Read more indie novels and more Australian authors - I have so many friends that are indie authors, I'm ashamed I'm not reading more of these releases. I'm aiming to make every second book I read either Australian or indie. That should help me get through lots more without missing out on any mainstream traditionally published foreign books I may just be dying to read (like the next Spellman's book). I'm also going to submit a lot more Amazon reviews of the books I like.

In our family we also make a wish for the new year. It can be as big or wild as you want, and usually is something we couldn't possibly achieve in the one year, but it's nice to have high goals. Mine is for us to buy a property, but I do think it'll take more than a year of saving. Still, it'll help me stay focused on my saving resolution. What would your wild wish for 2013 be?

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