The Story Machine

So I just had this really interesting meeting at the Australian Children's Television Foundation. And it got me thinking about stories, and narrative. And the way we consume those things.

There was an article in the New York Times that I meant to blog about a couple of months ago. It was one of those OH NOES kids don’t read anymore articles. The kind that seem to be written entirely with the purpose of pissing people like me off.

One of my favourite bits was this:

“Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

This is the kind of ridiculous truism that really gets my hackles up. No, electronic media doesn’t provide the same kind of intellectual and personal development as reading does. But neither does watching TV/ getting plenty of fresh air and exercise/ eating leafy vegetables/ being good to your mother. BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT THINGS.

Nobody (outside the sensationalising of journalists) is saying that one should replace the other. And there are plenty of benefits sustained from engaging in electronic media that are not sustained from frequent reading.  

I spend a lot of time talking to teachers and librarians about technology, and why it’s important to use it in their classrooms (and why writing up an essay using Microsoft Word isn’t using technology any more than using a pencil is). I also spend a lot of time talking to teachers about how to foster a love of reading and books in the classroom.

The other day someone asked me if I thought there was an inherent contradiction there.

And I laughed.

Back to this New York Times article. It mentions a teenager called Nadia, who got really attached to a Holocaust memoir, and her enthusiastic parent tried giving her a fantasy novel (because that’s OBVIOUSLY the next step), and she didn’t like it.

Despite these efforts, Nadia never became a big reader. Instead, she became obsessed with Japanese anime cartoons on television and comics like “Sailor Moon.” Then, when she was in the sixth grade, the family bought its first computer. When a friend introduced Nadia to fanfiction.net, she turned off the television and started reading online. Now she regularly reads stories that run as long as 45 Web pages. 

Okay. So she didn’t like the fantasy novel, and that experience turned her off reading novels. That’s sad. But she reads manga, and online fanfic, often. Voraciously, even. So exactly what part of this demonstrates that she is not a big reader? None of it. Nadia is a big reader. She spends a significant amount of her leisure time reading comic books, and reading online.

As do I.

The article goes on to say that Nadia writes her own fanfic as well, but then spends several paragraphs pointing out that some fanfic has lots of spelling mistakes.

Way to bury the lede, New York Times.

Can we go back for a minute? Past all the doom-and-gloom-kids-today bullshit and just rethink this?

This girl, Nadia, loves story.

She loves it so much that consuming it isn’t enough. She wants to spend more time with her favourite characters. She wants to push them into situations beyond the ones they experience in canon.

And every time Nadia reads or writes or watches or hears a story, it feeds her own story machine. It deepens her understanding of the way narrative works. And this understanding of story, of the mechanics of story, makes her love story even more.

Every time you read a book, an article, a piece of fanfic, watch TV, go to the cinema, you are feeding your story machine. It’s like breathing in.

And when you write a story, or blog, or draw a picture, or tell someone a lurid anecdote about what your crazy aunt got you for your birthday, or make a video, or write a song… you are also feeding your story machine. You breathe out.

And everyone who loves stories does this. Even if it’s just telling someone about a great book you read. 

It’s all breathing in, breathing out. 

Feeding the story machine.

(for a good way to feed your own story machine, check out the Inkys Creative Reading Prize)

Back to Anthony McGowan

Remember this post about Anthony McGowan's opinions on Pink Books?

Well the post received an anonymous comment that implies it's from McGowan. If it isn't, I sincerely apologise to Mr McGowan. If it is, he should maybe think about being a little less anonymous.

Anyway. I thought I'd just copy the anonymous comment, and my response. FYI*.

Here's what he originally said:

The leathery-skinned hacks who churn out the Pink books present a vision of young people as self-obsessed, shallow, blind automata, swilling about in a moronic inferno. Reading these books will leave your soul as shrivelled as one of those pistachios you sometimes find, blackened, in the bottom of the bag. Teenage girls, read the Brontës, read Elizabeth Gaskell, read George Eliot, read anything else - even Jane Austen - but keep the pink off your shelves.

And here are his response, and my response:

Anonymous said...

In case you didn't notice, all the authors i recommended were women, so cut the white man bullshit. And the author i had in mind was Louise Rennison - read three of her books, as a judge in various competitions. I can't deny there was little of the wind up about the blog, but I'd still stand by every word.

lili said...

Hi "Anonymous",

I would much rather the youth of today read Louise Rennison than anything by the Brontës (the very definition of "self-obsessed, shallow, blind automata, swilling about in a moronic inferno", in my opinion).

And it's a bit rich to dismiss a whole genre based on one author's work. There are some amazing Pink books out there that are challenging, thought-provoking and empowering - Meg Cabot's Ready or Not is an example that springs to mind.

Can you say the same things about your books? Are The Bare Bum Gang books challenging, thought-provoking and empowering for their young readers?

I haven't read them, so I can't say.

Best,

Lili Wilkinson.

_________________________________
*Why does this always happen to me? First Frank Cottrell Boyce, now Anthony McGowan.

Shame on You, Fairfax

The A2 section of today's Age contained some great stuff. A fabulous article by Ursula Dubosarsky about darkness and the bleak life of Rudolf Těsnohlídek. A good (if short) review of Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North. A good start really, including these two profound and achingly beautiful voices in young adult literature.

Then, there was a review of Nam Le's The Boat, an adult novel that apparently contains no lesbian vampires (although why the reviewer chose to point this out, I'm not sure. A good headline, perhaps?). The review was by James Ley, can be found on page 31, and contained the following sentence:

"It reads like an unusually well-crafted piece of teen fiction, the work of a gifted imitator rather than a unique talent."

While I understand that hanging Mr Ley up by his thumbs until he squeals is probably not an option, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that Mr Ley should try reading some teen fiction (like that written by "unique talents" Dubosarsky or Pullman, as an example). And perhaps The Age could, in future, think twice before publishing such patronising and uneducated drivel.

Saturday morning rant (story v language)

I've been thinking a lot about the war that is being fought between story and language.

It shouldn't be a war. Language and story should work together. But people don't seem to want to let them, and so they fight.

I heard someone say recently that they didn't like books they couldn't put down. This person felt manipulated by a gripping plot. I found this astonishing.

It goes hand-in-hand with the snobbery towards mass-market fiction, chicklit (see Maureen Johnson's awesome post for more on that) and, of course, YA.

Nick Hornby has this to say:

“In a way, I think all books should be teen books. I can read them quickly without getting bogged down, and feel I’ve read something that was meant in the way literature’s supposed to be. They’re very digestible, designed not to bore people.”

But if you have a look at the kind of books that win the Miles Franklin and the Booker, it seems pretty clear that the literati don't agree. Literature needs to be dense, beautiful and obfuscating.

I love beautiful language. Writers like Margaret Atwood (pre-Oryx & Crake), Jorge Louis-Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And of course the beautiful-language YA writers Ursula Dubosarsky, Margo Lanagan and David Almond. But as well as having a truly magical control over language, all these writers also know how to tell a cracking good story.

Making stories is an art. It's difficult and complex and there are rules and structures, and if you don't want to stick to those rules and structures, then fine, but you'd better have a damn good reason. In my four years of studying creative writing at Uni, not one class mentioned the importance of structure, except of course, for my screenwriting class.

The story vs language brawl spills over into visual media as well. Film can be loved by our intellectual elite because of its 'language' - the cinematography, metaphor and mood. Television, however, is much more reliant on story. Smaller screens, heavily prescribed time limits, and a need for continuity mean that TV shows have more rules and structures.
But that doesn't mean they can't be art, too. There is often more thought, care, craft, put into an episode of The West Wing, Six Feet Under or Veronica Mars, than into a feature film of the kind that our intellectual elite favour.

I'm not really sure where this rant is heading. I suppose it's a plea. Don't be ashamed to read The Da Vinci Code just because it's mass market fiction. There are plenty of other reasons to be ashamed (ie: it's crap). Embrace your love of chicklit (and its cinematic equivalent, the romcom). Read a fantasy novel. Watch Battlestar Galactica.

Yes. There is bad chicklit. And bad fantasy novels. And books like The Da Vinci Code.

But here's a revalation: there's a lot of bad books, full stop. Some of them have won prestigious literary awards.

You will judge a book by its cover - everyone does. I certainly do. But I try not to judge books by what section of the bookshop they are shelved in*.

Send in the peacekeepers! End the war! Give story a chance.

_______________

*This isn't entirely true. I tend to avoid self-help and true-crime. But in terms of fiction, I'm showing the love for all shelves.

Overheard in Melbourne Central

Skanky Teen Girl #1: Ohmigawd, have youse read that book Twilight?

Skanky Teen Girl #2: Huh?

STG #1: Twilight? It's Stephanie Meyer? It's the BOMB.

STG #2: Books? Yuck?

STG #1: No, I know that, you know, teachers say you fall in love with a character in a book? And I'm all like gross? That's so dumb? But I swear, chapter one of Twilight and I just... you just... he's so...

STG #2: Shut up. Let's go to Supré .