What would you NEVER do .... Miriam Halahmy

I run regular weekly workshops in one of the last surviving Independent libraries in the country, The Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, founded in 1839. The building contains over 25, 000 books and many original documents and paintings, often consulted by researchers. The library itself is one of those lovely places with high wood shelving and a clock that ticks steadily and melodically. It’s an inspiring place to sit and read.

Students in my workshops come from all over London but many of them live locally in Highgate village and walk to the class. They come from many walks of life, some of them are already well known journalists and poets, others are just beginning to publish and some just enjoy the camaraderie of the class and the weekly writing exercises. Several people have completed novels and memoirs, some of which are published.

. Each year we collect together an anthology of the students work, someone volunteers to design a cover and we collate the work together into binders at the end of the term. A copy of each anthology is kept in the library. One of our best covers was our chewing gum painting by artist Ben Wilson, created on a piece of gum outside on the pavement, depicting the fact that Coleridge once shook hands with Keats in Highgate.

This term we have worked on creating characters and I thought it would be interesting to ask students to share what they would NEVER do and then write a character who would do one or two things from the list. In other words, I was challenging the students to step right outside their comfort zone and dig deep for an original slant to their characters.

So here is the list. Why not try it out and see if it gives you a fresh eye on those edgy characters you are developing! Good luck!

Things that students in my classes would NEVER do :-

Ride on a roller coaster

Have a tattoo

Be a window cleaner on the Gherkin

Insult my wife’s cooking

Swim the Channel

Take a Nordic cruise to a freezing cold zone

Go pot-holing

Be anywhere confined

Say never – except in certain circumstances

Go speed-dating

Visit a nudist beach

Attend a cookery class

Eat snake

Watch Coronation Street

Drink my own urine

Perform a dance in public

Enter a hard-boiled egg-eating competition

Can’t think of anything which shows what I am prepared to do

Things that writers on Facebook told me they would NEVER do :

Cheat on my husband

Shoplift

Skydive

Go on a reality TV show

Vote Tory

Watch Top Gear

Murder someone

Eat jellied eels

Let a tarantula crawl on me

Eat a banana ( the last two are connected – spiders, banana boats??)

Lick a razor blade

Apologise

 www.miriamhalahmy.com

A London Mugging by Keren David

Apologies for posting a little late. It's been an unexpectedly busy day.
My son and his friend  -  two twelve-year-old boys -  got mugged on their way home from school. They weren't hurt, just shaken, they handled it well, the muggers (three of them, older) got away with one broken Blackberry.
The police were great, they arrived within ten minutes of my call, took my son's friend up the road to see if he could spot them, took descriptions from both of them, took them seriously, praised their actions.
As a mother it was painful to imagine how easily things could have been worse, how easily an knife could have come out of a back pocket, how they might have been punched or kicked or hurt in other ways. We will have to reconsider the safety of the streets near our local railway station, think about whether it's still OK for my son and his sister to walk home alone.
As a writer though it was interesting to hear how the muggers spoke (they used exactly the same words that the muggers use in my books When I Was Joe and Almost True) the way the police looked (rough) and spoke ('We work the peak burglary hours -  2 till 2')
Sometimes being a writer insulates you from everyday traumas. That part of you which observes and take notes actually springs into action when life becomes dramatic -  even when the drama is painful and difficult.
I have once been a victim of burglary, once witnessed a mugging, three times been in close proximity to shootings (Halloween last week reminded me, as it always does, of the year when a man was killed by profession assassins right in the middle of the Amsterdam expat children's Halloween route -  we were on the same street at the time and it was right outside our old house.) I was once chased in my car, once approached by a strange man in the woods saying 'Give us a kiss', I was groped by a pervert in the crowd at the end of the London Marathon. These were all frightening things but nothing too traumatic. Nothing that changed my life.
The police told my son that his friend (owner of the Blackberry) was the victim of the crime and he was a witness.  Afterwards he said to me 'I'm like the boy in your book. I'm like Joe.'
Well, no, I said, Joe witnesses a murder, he has to go into witness protection. None of that has happened to you. None of that is ever going to happen to you. And silently I pray that I've told the truth.

Not Enough YA Choice For Boys?

At our recent YLG event we discussed many issues concerning teen fiction, and an interesting topic that came up was the domination of female authors in YA fiction. Indeed, the YA publishing industry is dominated by women - agents, editors, publicists - even within the eight members of The Edge only one of us is male. There are far more women than men, so what effect does this have on teen boys as readers? Are they put off picking up a book by a female author?

I had always feared this may be the case. It certainly was in the past - it was the very reason why the Bronte sisters and George Eliot published under male pseudonyms. My own mother had her book "Football Magic" published under the name "E Dale" not Elizabeth Dale because her publisher believed that a female author's name on the cover would put boys off - even a book about football! And I always assumed this why the Harry Potter series was published under "J.K." Rowling, not Joanne. So I was pleasantly surprised when the resounding response from a group of librarians was "No!". Boys don't seem to care, or even notice, what sex the author's name on the cover is - but they do care about the cover design itself.

Very few boys would want to be seen reading a sparkly pink book, for example, or a cover which only features a girl. This is what their friends will see, of course, so it matters what the book itself looks like - and it can't appear to be "girly". Which leads on to the other most important factor to the majority of teen boys - that the book features a male protagonist. This, perhaps, is more of an issue.

Of course there are many wonderful male YA authors writing great books with male protagonists (John Green, Dave Cousins, Keith Gray, Melvin Burgess, Walter Dean Myers, Scott Westerfeld, Jay Asher, Gary Paulsen, Robison Wells, Dan Wells, Michael Grant, Daniel Kraus, Neal Shusterman, Darren Shan to name a few), and likewise many female YA authors are writing fantastic books with male protagonists - Keren David's When I Was Joe series, for example, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Twisted - but the fact remains that the majority of YA novels currently being published have female protagonists. Why? Because teen girls are the biggest consumers of YA fiction.

But is this a vicious cycle? If teenage girls buy the most books and consequently most of the YA books published are targeted at teen girls, where does it leave boys? Are there enough books being published with male protagonists? Do they have enough choice?

Girls don't seem to mind reading about male protagonists, so should there be more male protagonists out there to appeal to both sexes? Or should we try to break down this reluctance in boys to read about female protagonists? How? By writing books with dual male/female narrators like Jenny Downham's You Against Me or Malorie Blackman's wonderful Noughts and Crosses series?

Which of course leads on to discussing much bigger areas of inequality in YA fiction. For whilst there may be gender inequality in YA protagonists, much bigger inequalities lie in ethnicity, religion, and sexuality.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if YA protagonists reflected the real world teen population in every way...?

Violence in teen literature by Bryony Pearce

First of all an apology to anyone who was looking for the new Edge posting on Friday – I missed my spot and it won’t happen again.

Now, if anyone was thinking angry thoughts at my lack of a post, you’re on trend for this week as I’m posting about violence. 

When I first came up with my story idea for Angel’s Fury, I realised that it might have some violent moments.  I thought it might even be a ‘horror’ but I wasn’t sure how far I could go, seeing I was writing for teens and not adults.  So I did some research to make sure my book stayed within the realms of what was suitable.  I got a Darren Shan novel out of the library – Lord Loss. 

I had to put it down before the last page.  I was, I’ll be honest, horrified, and I am someone who read Stephen King’s The Stand at 13 years old.  The levels of violence and gore were almost incomprehensible to me. 

James Delingpole, writing in The Daily Telegraph described the book as dark but moral, he says "The scene in which the boy's father, mother and sister are disemboweled and shredded by the demon Lord Loss and his vile familiars Artery and Vein, must surely be the most jaw-droppingly grisly in children's literature."

A recent Amazon review of the same book reads:

“I am a fifteen year old girl who loves horror and everything in the genre. I've in fact read ALL of the vampire series by the same author so was expecting the same sort of style of writing and was quite surprised when reading this how GORY it was. …  this book is not recommended for children's bedtime reading unless nightmares are your thing!”

Do parents really know what their kids are reading?  It seems impossible to me that they do.  The chances of my kids ever reading a Shan, after my own experience with his work, are next to zero. 

How is it that there are endless debates about the portrayal of sex and drugs in children’s literature; that I am not allowed to drop the f-bomb, and yet I can, if so inclined, graphically portray the mutilation and cannibalistic disembowelment of a teenager (I just finished Shadows by Ilsa Blick and she does just that)?

Is it because this graphic violence is commonly fantasy violence and therefore not sufficiently realistic to raise an eyebrow amongst established gatekeepers?   

Is it because children may go out and have sex after being titillated by teen literature, but are unlikely to turn into cannibals or werewolves?  

Is it because we think teens are so de-sensitised to violence already?   

Is it because the religious right are less interested in violence than in sex and swearing?   

Is it because publishers think that only torture porn will get boys reading?  

Is it some reason I haven’t even thought of, or an amalgamation of factors?

All I know, is that I’d rather my daughter read about a healthy sexual relationship with perhaps a few swear words thrown in, than be given horrifying nightmares by reading scenes of such graphic violence that they made me, an adult,  feel dirty and nauseous.

Perhaps this debate needs to be opened up.  I'm not keen on censorship, but I wonder if the same amount of thought should go into the horror elements of teen books, as it does into the sexual side.

What do you think?

At Night on the Edge with the Youth Libraries Group at Foyles Bookshop

Last night, six Edge authors joined members of the Youth Libraries Group at Foyles bookshop in London, for an evening of flash readings, panel debate and breakout sessions to explore the edges of teen and young adult fiction. 

Here are some of the highlights.

The iconic Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road

A frenzy of activity preparing the gift bags

Foyles rock – literally!

Foyles Gallery – ready and waiting

Our guests add their thoughts to the Edge Graffiti Wall

The audience weren't expecting …

YLG's Matt Imrie to start the evening off with a song!

All too much for Miriam, but Bryony enjoyed it.

Waiting to see what would happen next.

Whatever it was, Sara and Katie enjoyed it …

Video evidence of Matt's musical intro …

Thanks to Neil, Emily and Helen at Foyles, for hosting the event and to Matt Imrie at YLG for making the idea a reality. Much appreciation also to our publishers for their generous support – shout-outs to Orion, Egmont, Oxford University Press, Simon & Schuster, Usborne, Meadowside and Andersen.

Finally, huge thanks to everyone who battled through the downpour to attend – it would have been a very quiet night without you.

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER.

 

The Edge is delighted to welcome Ruth Eastham, award-winning author of The Memory Cage and The Messenger Bird, as she discusses the hazards of phone numbers in fiction

 

Nathan’s dad is in trouble. BIG trouble. He’s been arrested, accused of selling military secrets to the enemy. Now it’s up to Nathan to get him off the hook. But time is running out, and all Nathan’s got to go on is a weird trail of clues that dates back to the 1940s. A trail laid by someone who used to work at the top-secret wartime code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park. What the…?

And to make matters worse Nathan starts getting phone calls from someone who’s supposed to be long dead….

But Nathan thinks HE has problems?

 

Microsoft clipart online 

776-2323
 

When makers of the 2003 movie, Bruce Almighty, unthinkingly used a real phone number in the film, poor souls in several US states were swamped with hundreds of calls from people… asking to speak to God.

Bruce Almighty, 2003, Universal Pictures

Yes, believe it or not, people WILL reach for their phones to ring numbers from the screen, be it a film at the cinema or a favourite TV soap.  Even song lyrics can be risky.  And books are no exception.
 

(Not that I would do such a … er … ridiculous thing as to try and ... Goodness me, no!) *goes bright red*

So to avoid someone’s grandma getting thousands of calls from people wanting to tell Hunger Games hunk Liam Hemsworth how much they like his acting, or to ask out film star Emma Stone, there’s a special list of phone numbers saved just for the job!

The Del-Boy-Special model

 

If you live in Manchester, for example, you should be okay as long as your phone number isn’t anywhere between 0161 4960000 and 4960999 inclusive. Londoners will be safe outside of 020 7946000 to 79460999. And 0141 496000 to 4960999 should keep Glaswegians out of trouble. If you want a mobile number in your storyline, you can have your pick from 07700 900000 to 900999. Sorted!

 Don’t fancy these ranges? Want something more authentic without making a stranger’s home life a misery? There ARE other options…

“Press 76 to hear these options again.”

Take The Wire and Scrubs. The producers of programmes like these have been known to actually register real phone numbers to use in episodes; numbers “not recognised” when over-keen fans ring in. Or, more excitingly, numbers that might lead to a recorded message from the character themself!

Ex-Doctor Who, David Tennant

The Timelord’s mobile number is: 0770 0900 461

(But please do not broadcast this fact.)

Using phone numbers in fiction without a second thought?

It’s a big no, no!

Writers must pick ‘n’ mix those digits with care.

(But it’s a great way to really annoy someone, though, eh?) :D

Talking of wrong numbers, and getting back to BP (Bletchley Park) here are a few not-so-fake numbers:

9,000 = number of people working at BP at its height.

18 = age of youngest workers.

159,000,000,000,000 = number of possible settings on an enemy secret-message-making Enigma machine.

2 = number of years World War II was shortened by because of the work done at BP

and

07700900583 = mystery mobile number in The Messenger Bird.

Not that you would do such a ridiculous thing as to try and…

visit Ruth’s website: www.rutheastham.com

follow Ruth on twitter: @RuthEastham1
follow Ruth on Facebook: Ruth Eastham - Writer

YA Interrogation with Guest Blogger Cicely Loves Books!

This week we are delighted to welcome Cicely from Cicely Loves Books as our guest on the Edge …  

Cicely with Karen Mahoney

Hello, EDGE-y people! I’m Cicely and I blog over at Cicely Loves Books (you can tell I toiled over that one). I blog pretty much solely about YA, and have been doing so for about a year and a half now, (and LOVING it). I’m also a pretty big fan of the old Caps Lock/exclamation point, so forgive me if I come across as being incredibly excitable. I’m not *always* like this, I promise. Just when I’ve been at the ole’ caffeine, (Which, I guess, is all the time…)

So, Cicely, WHY do you read and write about YA books?

I read and write about YA mostly because, well, I am a teenager. So it only really seems appropriate, right? Also, it makes me feel pretty normal when I’m reading a contemp and the characters are like me and I can just relate and it makes me feel a bit less, well, weird. Makes me feel less alone sometimes, I guess. As does the awesome community!

We're big fans of weird at the Edge! So what are the most ORIGINAL YA books that you've read?

Hmm, most original? That’s a tough question, but surprisingly some of the most original YA (in my opinion) are retellings of things. I think it really takes an original perspective to take something familiar and turn it into something brand new, so books like Shadows on The Moon and Long Lankin, and Nevermore (which is all just kind of based on Poe’s work). Also, anything that takes on a new format in storytelling, I guess, and uses a new style to tell the story like Stolen and The Perks of Being A Wallflower.

OK, but what is a TURN OFF for you in YA fiction?

Ugh, INSTA- FREAKING-LOVE. It needs to be less frequent. I’m not saying it should stop, it should just appear less. Please.

But what makes for a GREAT YA book?

Originality. Interesting characters, or at least relatively realistic/relate able ones. An interesting plot line. Stuff that makes any book great, I guess?

Side-stepping reality for a moment, which YA characters would you most like to take OUT TO DINNER and why?

What YA characters would I most like to take out to dinner...? Katniss Everdeen, because I reckon we’d both have equally bad table manners and I wouldn’t have to pretend I knew why there’s about 7 different types of fork. Plus her tales from the Arena would be pretty interesting, if not off-putting. But if we’re talking date-dinner, probably Will Herondale: witty, tortured, and permanently dressed in Victorian clothing. Perfect dinner companion!

On a similar theme, who is your ideal YA HERO / HEROINE and why?

My ideal YA heroine is probably Korra from the Legend of Korra. I know she’s already fictional, but I don’t care, I want her in a book now please. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this show, but it’s AMAZING and I love Korra and I can’t wait to see her character development and I really shouldn’t have brought this up because now I won’t stop talking about it. *deep breath*

(Half an hour later …) What makes you uncomfortable or question THE BOUNDARIES of YA?

Nothing, really, apart from gratuitous sex scenes I guess. Not that I’ve even come across stuff like that in YA, ever. Yeah… But sex is cool as long as it isn’t really into detail, drugs are cool as long as they’re being represented realistically and not advocated, swearing – well, I swear and I am a teen, so that’s fine. Yeah.

What would you LIKE to see happening in YA fiction over the next five years?

Less paranormal romance, more horror/suspense paranormal fiction. I want scary things to actually be scary. And more high quality YA comtemps! And UK YA!

But what do you think will ACTUALLY BE the next big thing in YA?

Hmm, there’ll still be this thing with Dystopia going on for a little while I think, but I think there’ll be more high fantasy over the next few years, too.

So, give us your TOP FIVE YA/Teen books.

Only five?! But it changes all the time! Okay, I’m going to try. At this very minute, my favourites are:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (so excited for the film!) 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Everything by Sarah Dessen ever

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowely

Chime by Franny Billingsly

Finally, could we ask for a recommendation – if you read one book this year, read THIS … 

Perks of Being a Wallflower. I only read it for the first time this year, but it’s just really good. If you’re not a big reader, it’s short and simply written, but it’s really honest and melancholy and it’s just a really good book, regardless of it being YA or whatever.

OK, that's a few more books to add to the Edge bookshelf! Thanks for being this week's guest on the Edge Cicely and for taking the time to answer all our questions so thoroughly!

Thanks for having me! 

Don't forget to check out Cicely's own blog over at Cicely Loves Books.