Helen Stringer's Blog

A recent article in Studio System News (SSN) discussed the appeal of what it described as "YA lit" to studios and motion picture production companies. (You can read the original article here.) The writer of the article described all literature aimed at children and teens as "YA." This is not uncommon, but it goes quite a long way toward explaining why Hollywood keeps making movies based on successful book series and ends up scratching its collective head when the box office results are disappointing. I initially wrote this article in the comments section of the article, but I think it bears repeating.

Basically, there seems to be some confusion in the entertainment industry as to what exactly constitutes a YA novel. The publishing industry sees Middle Grade (books intended for 10+) and YA (books intended for teens) as distinct markets. While there is a great deal of crossover between the Middle Grade age group and the age group that reads YA, the publisher-imposed definitions have a great effect on what actually makes it to market.

My first two novels Spellbinder and The Midnight Gate are Middle Grade. Those books feature a girl, Belladonna Johnson, and a boy, Steve Evans, who travel to the Land of the Dead. My third novel (as you know if you've been following this blog) is Paradigm , a scfi story with a male lead, Sam Cooper. This was when my troubles began.

Publishers love Middle Grade books with boys as the central character. The Harry Potter books, Percy Jackson, Ender’s Game, The Wardstone Chronicles, The Golden Compass, City of Ember, The Giver, and Artemis Fowl (all categorized in the article as YA) are actually Middle Grade. However, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, and Divergent are squarely YA and aimed at teen readers.

What do the YA books have in common? They all have a girl as the central character. When I approached publishers and agents with Paradigm, I was told “boys over the age of 12 don’t read” (direct quote from an email). Everyone enjoyed the book, but agents, in particular, said it wasn’t worth the struggle to try to get publishers to read a book with a male lead. It was suggested that I change Sam to Samantha, but the idea of giving up on an entire gender just because it might be more difficult to reach them seemed too much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I self-published.

But that’s publishing, I hear you say, not film or TV. However, it’s worth noting, that with the exception of the Harry Potter franchise, films based on Middle Grade books have struggled, while those based on female-centric YA have done well. The initial negative reaction of fans of Twilight to the casting of the leads, illustrates the difference. Younger children enjoy their books, but tend not to get so emotionally attached to the characters. YA novels on the other hand appeal primarily to teenage girls, and generally include an overwrought romantic triangle. Teen girls have ready access to money and make their own purchasing decisions. The result is that they are much more personally invested in the characters, feel emotionally attached to them and communicate those feelings to their peers who then go out and purchase the same books. The same might be true of teen boys, but there are far fewer books aimed at that market.

Of course, this is not true when it comes to going to the movies – teen boys go in droves. They will also see movies they like multiple times. The studios know this, which is why they keep optioning Middle Grade books with male leads, apparently thinking they will appeal to teen boys. But they have misread the market for those books, which are aimed at younger children who have to be taken to a movie. Teens go to movies by themselves, but most teen boys are no longer reading books like Artemis Fowl. They're also not reading The Hunger Games. They're certainly not reading any of the vast majority of YA books which feature a morose-looking girl on the cover -- because who wants to be caught doing that?

All of which leaves teen boys out in the proverbial cold. Publishers aren't interested in them because they believe that they don't read, while the entertainment industry continually makes movies that miss their target demographic because they apparently don't understand the difference between Middle Grade and YA. But it doesn't end there -- the obsession with the idea of making a movie based on an already successful property (which will therefore deliver its fan base to the theater), serves no one well. It results in films that fail to reach the audience the studios hanker for, and it makes original screenplays that would appeal to that demographic increasingly difficult to sell.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle over on my Facebook page yesterday. Basically, I had posted a link supporting the boycott of Barilla products because of the, quite frankly, vile remarks of that company's CEO about gay families. Nothing unusual there, similar links are everywhere at the moment. What was unusual was the first comment left by a fan and fairly long term FB friend. It just read: "Gay."

That's all. No emoticon. No wink. Nothing to say "I am being ironic," which I knew he was. I knew that this person was not bigoted, but that did not alter the fact that the comment was inappropriate. Under normal circumstances, I would have deleted it and sent him an explanation, but I was battling a cold and withdrew to bed instead. Big mistake. Big.

By the time I'd dragged myself back to my laptop, things had escalated. Not surprisingly, the comment had caused offense. This raises the issue of the correct response when you have (however inadvertently) offended someone. Is it (a) to explain at length what you really meant and why the other person should not be offended; or (b) to say something along the lines of, "I'm sorry." Just in case you were wondering, which I hope you weren't, the answer is option (b). I think we all know which option the poster went for. It was this: " "In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a derisive meaning equivalent to rubbish or stupid (as in "That's so gay."). In this use, the word does not mean "homosexual", so it can be used, for example, to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept of which one disapproves." -- This was my intended meaning for the word as I typed it. However, since it refers to an article that concerns another - different - meaning for the word, there is a small amount of irony in it's use here. I found it more interesting and challenging to produce this irony during my daily Facebooking than were I to just respond with something less interesting and normal."

Did that help to smooth the waters? Of course not. However, I was somewhat curious about the source of his quote. It appears on Wikipedia and in a few other places, though I haven't been able to discover the exact origins. It is correct insofar as the word "gay" became a generalized pejorative term on playgrounds at some time in the '80s and '90s. How that happened is up for debate. Perhaps kids picked it up from their parents. Smaller children certainly had no concept of its meaning or its potential as a homophobic slur. The response to that is to correct the child, explain that it is hurtful and move on. Its use in that context by adults is more worrisome. There was a case in the UK where a BBC DJ used the term to mean "rubbish," and incited many complaints. An internal BBC investigation decided that while the word was indeed used in that way, it could also be construed as homophobic and should therefore only be used "with caution." This decision did not sit well with Kevin Brennan, the Minister for Children at that time, who pointed out that "the casual use of homophobic language by mainstream DJ's is...too often seen as harmless banter instead of the offensive insult that it really represents. ... To ignore this problem is to collude in it. The blind eye to casual name-calling, looking the other way because it is the easy option, is simply intolerable."

Quite right. At a time when online bullying is leading to a rising suicide rate among teens, great care must be taken by those in positions of authority or influence to avoid any impression of approval in potentially hurtful (or downright offensive) name-calling.

Of course, it's not just random Facebookers or foolish DJs who indulge in this kind of thing and then attempt to justify themselves by suggesting that they had a completely different definition in mind when they spoke. In a more recent case (last week), a British UKIP politician described women in a meeting at his own party's conference as "sluts." When challenged, he attempted to explain that he did not mean that they were sexually promiscuous, but that they were women of slovenly habits...because they did not clean behind their fridges. It was no more acceptable for him to claim that he was using the term in the 18th century sense, than it is to try to justify a homophobic slur based on its playground definition. The politician's remark about women followed fast on an earlier comment in which he described foreign aid as going to "bongo-bongo land," and together led to his resignation from the party. (He couldn't see what was wrong with the "bongo-bongo land" comment either.)

There are those who see things like this and immediately start to fulminate about the language being hijacked by people who are being needlessly sensitive to certain words, robbing them of their meaning, or reducing them to a single definition, and in so doing impoverishing our tongue. My Facebook acquaintance attempted to do this. He first messaged me to complain about the injustice of it all, but on my suggesting that he was in the wrong, instead resorted to his own wall with a rather rambling defense and righteous expressions of disdain for the "liberals" who designate certain words as inappropriate (he included the n-word in this) and thereby weaken the language as a whole.

My response to this is a lovely old word: poppycock! It is arrant nonsense to suggest that the language is being harmed in any way by raising the awareness of certain words as offensive to others. The very strength of the English language lies in its flexibility. Words do not have a single meaning that remains, solid and unchanging over the millennia. The English language is nothing if not plastic, it adopts words from other cultures, gives new meaning to old ones, and creates brand new words as needs require. "Nice" now means "pleasant," where it used to mean "precise." "Pretty" originally meant "clever" or "deceitful," where now it means "good looking." It is simply not acceptable to use a word that you know to be offensive and, when challenged, attempt to defend yourself with one of the more arcane definitions in the OED.

But, of course, what we are really talking about here is manners. Words can cause offense. It is a fact. Knowing this, why would you continue to use those words? Why would you insist on taking some perceived moral high ground and shout them from the rooftops, or assert that "they're just words," so no one should be offended? Why would your knee-jerk response to someone's negative reaction to the use of a particular word be to vilify that person as over-sensitive or foolish?

The reason that we have codes of behavior, manners, is not to lord it over other people, or make fun of them because they use the wrong fork. The whole purpose of manners is to make people feel comfortable, to ensure that no one feels excluded. There is nothing clever or funny about making people uncomfortable or unwelcome.

Having said that, it cannot be denied that we all make mistakes. At some point every single one of us WILL say or do something that upsets or offends someone else. With the best will in the world, it will happen. The correct, mannerly response to this is not complex, it does not require that you retreat to your tower and defend your position with your last breath. It requires two words:

"I'm sorry."

It does not then require that you make a mental note not to say this or that in front of a particular person. It does mean that you now understand that certain words can cause offense and that you stop using them. Whatever thought you were trying to express, there is more than one word for it. The Oxford English Dictionary has around three quarters of a million words (not including those that are obsolete). Find a better one. Expand your vocabulary.

And, as all our mothers and grandmothers have said to us at some point in our lives: "If you can't think of anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

There’s a weird thing about writing. Or, rather, about what is actually considered to be “writing.” For many years I worked on screenplays, honing my craft, creating stories intended for features or television. I considered myself a writer, but most of my friends and acquaintances did not.

Then I wrote Spellbinder , a middle-grade fantasy novel, and suddenly I was a writer.

“What does it feel like to be a writer?” people asked, when I showed them the ARCs.

But it's not like that. I didn’t suddenly become a writer. I had always been a writer, or more accurately, a storyteller. The compulsion to create stories, to observe the world around you and extrapolate a sequence of events, does not magically appear one day, unbidden. It has always been there. The medium does not dictate whether or not someone is a “writer.” Books are not more worthy than plays or screenplays or songs. Each has its own place and some stories are better told through one medium than another (one reason why movies based on novels are frequently disappointing).

I mention all this because I recently decided to return to filmmaking for one of my favorite tales. It’s called The Gloaming , and is a paranormal scfi story that I actually first worked on while writing Spellbinder. Both stories had ghosts as major characters, but The Gloaming was intended for adults and was much darker. I worked on one or the other each day, depending on what mood I was in. But, unlike Spellbinder, The Gloaming wasn’t a novel. It was a screenplay and was intended as a television pilot. Why? Well, because there was such a strong visual element to the story and I really “saw” it in my minds eye.

I see all my stories as if they were films unspooling in my head, but some are just meant to be told in pictures rather than words. Okay, you may ask, so why a series, why not a movie? Because the best television shows tell their stories gradually, unfurling as the characters learn and grow and change. They draw their audience into the world of the people inhabiting the tale, until the story becomes almost real.

So there I was, working on two stories, and The Gloaming was developing nicely right up to the moment that Spellbinder caught the attention of an agent. I stopped work on it and put all my energies into the adventures of Belladonna Johnson, and then into creating the gloomy landscape of Paradigm . But The Gloaming never went away, it was always there at the back of my mind…wanting to be told.

There then followed a series of events that led to my returning to the not-quite-dead, not-quite-alive Alex Solomon. The first was a result of Spellbinder being optioned as a potential series for MTV. I was a bit leery about it at the time, but was assured by various agents (by this time, I had a bunch of them) that a series would be a great way of bringing new readers to the books. It didn’t really turn out that way.

The story of Spellbinder was moved from the UK to the Pacific north west of America, the characters were aged up to 17, the fearsome Wild Hunt no longer rode the storm but became a couple of guys in black suits, and the worst…the absolute worst thing was that they completely changed the names of the two main characters! So any new readers attracted to the books by the television series would have been sorely disappointed.

Happily, it was never made.

The second event was shooting the trailer for Paradigm. As you may know, I started out as a filmmaker, attended the AFI, won various awards, and worked in the industry in various ways right up until Spellbinder was bought by Feiwel & Friends. But it had been years since I had actually shot anything. I told myself that I didn’t miss it, that writing books was better because a screenplay is only a blueprint. (I’m a past master at lying to myself!) The Paradigm shoot was only three days long, but that was enough to remind me how much I love filmmaking. The days are often 12 hours or more, the work is hard, the weather too hot or too cold…and on the Paradigm shoot we even managed to get stranded in the desert for nine hours. But I loved every last thing about it. It was how I started telling stories, and I yearned to do it again.

When I got home, I pulled up The Gloaming and another story I had been working on, called the actors who had starred in the Paradigm trailer, and scheduled a table-read of both scripts. It was wonderful to hear them, but there was no doubt about which one was best – everyone loved The Gloaming.

I didn’t waste any time trying to get someone else to produce it. I wanted the pictures in my head in front of an audience without any filtering or meddling. I sat down and broke down the script, then budgeted the shoot. It would take ten days, at the end of which we would have a six episode web series. I was joined by people who had worked on the Paradigm shoot, as well as people I had known the last time I was involved in making films.

Everyone loved the screenplay, it was tight and concise, dark and unusual. I decided to finance it through a Kickstarter campaign. I also created a mock-up of the title sequence, to give people an idea of the tone, and even recorded Greg Albinetti (who played Sam in the Paradigm trailer) reading an opening chapter that I had written when I briefly considered turning it into a book.

It was that chapter, more than anything else, that convinced me that a novel was not the correct way of telling this particular story. The Gloaming was a film.

I’ve included the chapter here, but for more detail about how we are going to make the web series a reality, please follow the link to The Gloaming Kickstarter campaign. Donations start at $5 and there are lots of lovely rewards for helping the story of Alex, Veronica and Ralph become a reality. But even if you can’t donate, it would be really helpful if you could just spread the word to anyone who might be interested.

Stories can be told in so many ways, with the spoken word, in books, in panels of pictures, in poetry, in song…and in film. The creators of all those things have one thing in common – they are all, without exception, writers.

 

 

There's a new interview with yours truly up on Indie Author Land. It was an online thing, but I've noticed that a few grammatical errors crept in at some point between the actual interview and its completion on the site. Ah, well...at least they included a really HUGE picture of the front cover of PARADIGM.

http://www.indieauthorland.com/archiv...

An article in the New Statesman last week has created a lot of discussion on the interwebs. The title was I Hate Strong Female Characters, a real go-for-the-jugular, in-your-face statement if ever there was one. The writer was female, which is a good thing, because if it had been a bloke all hell would have broken loose. I came across the article via Facebook and strongly suggest you read it before going any further here.

Finished? Okay...so here's my ten cents' worth.

While the writer makes some valid points, an awful lot of it the article is a rather labored effort to make a point. "Strong female character" here seems to actually mean "strong female character in a superhero movie," because, with the exception of Bridesmaids, that's all she talks about. Her knowledge of even those films seems fairly superficial. Although she doesn't actually mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the editors decided to illustrate the article with a picture of the character. It's therefore not clear if she includes Buffy in the reviled "strong female character" category, but the implication is there nevertheless. Was Buffy a "strong female character?" Well, yes, she was strong, but she was also vulnerable, which is what made her such a great character.

The thing with movies bases on comic books, of course, is that the industry (both the comic book industry and the TV/motion picture industry) has historically seen those franchises as predominantly of interest to guys. They now know that is not the case, but they also know that their audience, male and female, would have a collective coronary if they just arbitrarily changed the sex of a major character. Incorporating more women into lesser roles is certainly a great idea, but in an industry dominated by men, it's going to take some time.

That male domination is what has led to the rather one dimensional idea of what constitutes a "strong" character. Just as most men seem to think that women like the same things in men that men like in women -- a pretty face (note to guys - no, we don't), they also seem to think that the attributes that make what they regard as a strong male character are the same for a strong female character. Hence all the kickass girls.

But why the focus on superhero films? They are, by definition, cartoonish. I love them, but I don't expect them to contribute to feminism, any more than I expect them to reflect reality in any other way. As for comparing Shakespeare's Richard II to female characters in superhero flicks -- is this woman on crack? You can't compare Richard II to ANY of the heroes in superhero films. These are not movies that you go to with any expectation of character nuance and depth.

For strong characters with complexity and vulnerability you'd watch a drama or a really well-written comedy. The fact that there are now female characters who get to do some of the ass-kicking IS an advance. All Catwoman did in the old Batman series was simper and purr and let her gang (all guys) battle the Dynamic Duo. The only really well-rounded female character back in the day was Emma Peel in The Avengers -- sure she could kick ass, but she was also a physicist with a nice turn in dry wit.

And let's talk Doctor Who. The main purpose of the Doctor's companions used to be spraining their ankle at the most inopportune moment. But with Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, and now Clara, we have seen a succession of fully-rounded female characters with wisdom and intelligence. They let the Doctor know when he is going too far, or not far enough. They are no longer simple devices who ask questions so the Doctor can explain things to the audience and sound clever. They challenge him, question his motives, and make him more human.

Somebody told me that Alma was "really kickass" in Paradigm . She can look after herself, sure, but she's also carrying a great sorrow, locked away inside, that even Sam only glimpses. Carolyn Bast is powerful and ruthless. She has nothing to prove to anyone.

But there's a flip side to this coin. Guys are constantly presented with potential role models whose response to stress or challenge is to strike out. Emotion and vulnerability are portrayed as weakness. Intelligence as a hindrance to decision making. In many YA novels targeted at girls, the male characters are manipulative and damaged (many are little more than psychopathic stalkers). Is that a good thing, d'ya think? Some reviewers of Paradigm (admittedly, pretty dim ones - the ones who assert that "dystopian novels are supposed to have simple plots" and feel that the story could have done without all the "science"), classified Sam as a "beta-male." Presumably because he reads and has a functioning cerebral cortex. The Strong Female Character may be lacking in internal dialogue, but many of the male characters who are presented as "heroes" are little more than big lugs with the emotional and intellectual depth of a small puddle after a light rain.

It was a long time before Hollywood actually treated comics books and their fans with the respect that they deserved. At first it was enough to see Spider Man convincingly swing through skyscrapers, but the past twenty years have brought changes to the genre that the author of the New Statesman piece sees fit to ignore. In The Avengers, it is clear that Black Widow and Hawkeye have a history, but it's presented as that of friends who genuinely care for each other, not as a romance in which one has to prove him/herself to the other. They are professionals, but they have a past which has engendered respect. That is a really significant advance in the depiction of the male/female dynamic in superhero flicks.

In a genre in which there is still a great deal of "rescuing the damsel in distress," it was genuinely encouraging to see a realistic relationship. But to imply that the "strong women" of superhero flicks are typical of female roles throughout film in disingenuous and self-serving, and tells us more about the lack of breadth in the writer's cinematic education than anything else. Opining about film is something that an awful lot of people seem to feel qualified to do while doing almost no genuine research into their subject matter. (The fact that she does not reference any film earlier than the 21st century is fairly significant.) Media outlets seem to feel that, when it comes to certain genres of film, it is perfectly acceptable to just throw the opinions of absolutely anyone out into the ether. Funnily enough, they don't feel the same about art critics, yet we are long past the point of recognizing film as an art form.

Graphic novels/comic books are also recognized as a genuine art form. Put the two together, however, and you suddenly have a legitimate target for any random writer who has meandered into a superhero movie or two.

At a time when we have seen a resurgence of the passive, emotionally needy female lead in books and films (particularly those aimed at young girls), we should all be celebrating their kick-ass sisters, who won't take no for an answer and give as good as they get. We don't need fewer strong female characters -- we need a lot more.

Well that was more complicated than I thought!

Nevertheless, as promised, if you'd like a signed copy of Paradigm you can now have one. I've priced them lower than Amazon, but the shipping might be higher. I'd recommend selecting media mail if you're in the US, but the international shipping charges are a bit scary and I'm afraid there's no way around that.

If you are overseas and your country isn't listed on the shipping page, just email me and I'll add it. I spent two days entering the shipping data (three if you count Friday, when a wonderful friend helped out) and was starting to lose the will to live.

You can find it here at Mediadrome Press. I'm also offering signed copies of the Spellbinder novelette, The Blood Binding and my Thanksgiving food history book, No Better Thing Under The Sun, for no other reason than because I may as well.

A heartfelt "thank you" to everyone who entered the PARADIGM giveaway that ended last night! Congratulations to the people who will be getting signed copies of the book - I hope you enjoy it.

Far more people entered than I had anticipated, which was really lovely, but also left me feeling that an awful lot of people must be disappointed. I have therefore come up with an evil plan. Well...a plan, at any rate.

I have decided to offer signed copies of PARADIGM (with a dedication if you want) on my site at a really reasonable price. "What is really reasonable?" I hear you ask. Less than Amazon, is the reply.

Also, although the giveaway was limited to people in the US, UK and Canada, I will ship these copies anywhere in the world. (This will make the shipping charges for anyone outside the US a bit hefty, I'm afraid, but I'll do everything I can to keep them down.)

I'm ironing out the details and setting up the page on my site right now and will let you know when it's up and running! Hopefully in a few days.

"How can you have a trailer for a book?"

Well, exactly. A book is to be held and read, whereas a trailer is to tempt you into the theatre or to watch a TV show. But not any more. Now books have jumped onto the "In a world where..." bandwagon and book trailers are big business.

Do they work? The jury is still out on that one. The Wall Street Journal has gone on record stating that there is no evidence that trailers increase sales. There could be two reasons for that. The first and most obvious is that perhaps book readers aren't influenced by trailers. The second (and more likely, in my view) is that most of the trailers are dismal.

The bulk wouldn't get a passing grade in Film 101, let alone tempt someone to part with their hard-earned cash. Many appear to be made by the same company, if the recurrence of stock images is anything to go by, and the acting talent is...well, the less said about that the better. There are some that hit the nail on the head, of course, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Having said all that, about six months ago I decided that Paradigm would have a trailer. I also decided that I would do it myself. I've been to film school, so I'm familiar with film making. It would be easy - right? Not exactly. Making a trailer is very different from telling a complete story, and it had been a while since I'd shot and edited anything (understatement!), so I thought I'd better start with a teaser trailer.

First step: Adobe Creative Cloud. This gave me access to all the apps I'd need, particularly Premiere Pro and After Effects. I'd never used After Effects, so I started by experimenting with that. As I worked, I developed a concept and began to look for footage. There are many stock footage sites out there, but most of them are prohibitively expensive. Happily, I stumbled across Revostock, which is extremely reasonable. So inexpensive, in fact, that it gave me the latitude to experiment with different shots and graphics.

The second step was audio. Would there be a voice over? Text? Music? I experimented with voice overs but it didn't seem to work. Music presented a problem as well - unless you create it yourself, you will need clearances from both the composer and the distributor. In the end, I elected to go with a pulsing metallic heartbeat that eventually becomes a human heartbeat. Both sounds came from Revostock, though I had to speed up the machine sound to get the heartbeat effect.

The finished trailer is 58 seconds and you can see it here. Yes, I know my After Effects work leaves something to be desired, but it was my first attempt!

Once it was uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo I started thinking about the full length trailer. Um...and at this point I got a bit carried away.

Next time - Trailer Trials, part two. Featuring a cast of thousands, an RV, a junkyard, and nine hours stranded in the desert...

I've been working on a new book called "Paradigm." It's a departure for me in that it's YA and is from a boy's POV. I sent it to a couple of agents (changing agents is a pain) and received a response from one today.

She had asked for the first 10 pages, which I sent a little over a month ago. She very politely declined because, "...it’s a hard sell as publishers get hooked on the ‘boys stop reading at 12.'"

Now, I know that it is true that boys tend to lose interest in reading at around that age, but is that any reason to give up on them entirely? My nephew is twelve and loves to read, but it's really difficult to find anything for him when we go to the book store. Parents of boys have told me that they have the same problems. It's one of the reasons I wrote "Paradigm" in the first place.

Has anyone else noticed that there isn't much for older boys to read? If not, what titles/authors do you think really do succeed in keeping the love of reading alive?