I first met Cynthia Leitich Smith when both of us were starting to write for children. I was working with Kathi Appelt to lead the Brazos Valley chapter of SCBWI and Cynthia was becoming active in the Austin children’s writer scene. Fast forward more years than I care to tell, and now Cynthia is a media star! Not only is she the author of bestselling books, like ETERNAL and TANTALIZE (both Candlewick), she is also an amazing resource for other writers. Her website was named one of the top 10 Writer Sites on the Internet by Writer's Digest and an ALA Great Website for Kids. Her Cynsations blog was listed as among the top two read by the children's/YA publishing community in the SCBWI "To Market" column.

Cynthia is also one of those authors who writes in multiple genres. Her award-winning books for younger children include JINGLE DANCER, INDIAN SHOES and RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME (all HarperCollins). Next year look for the release of HOLLER LOUDLY (Dutton, Nov. 2010) for kids and BLESSED for YAs (Candlewick, Jan. 2011). Cynthia is also a member of faculty at the Vermont College M.F.A. program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.Check out her award winning blog or follow her on twitter @CynLeitichSmith!

This week, I'll be talking about why I write dystopian fiction--I mean--post-apocalyptic fiction--wait, science fiction! for teenagers.

Before we start, is everyone clear on dystopian fiction? Because my Dad wasn't. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Dystopia is defined as a society characterized by poverty, squalor, or oppression. Dystopias usually extrapolate elements of contemporary society and function as a warning against some modern trend, often the threat of oppressive regimes in one form or another. 

So, to summarize, dystopian societies exhibit a fatal flaw, much like a character might. A dystopian society might sprout from a post-apocalyptic world, which is the case with my current novel. But to be clear, the dystopian aspect of my novel is very, very minor. I mention all of this because dystopia has become a bit of a buzz word. Back to why I choose to write about messed up societies in the future... 

I have always loved imaginative fiction. Throughout my life, I've read fantasy from accessible, paranormal titles to high fantasy authors like George RR Martin. Science fiction, however, scared me. Sure, I dabbled, reading bits of Heinlein my brother left lying around the house, or Orwell, when I had to for school. But I never dove in like I did with fantasy books. Then came two pivotal stories. 

First, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Those of you who've read it know the genius that is this roller-coaster ride. Ender's Game didn't blind me with science (sorry. had to.) Character and story ruled in Ender's Game, not gadgetry or sociological complexities. Card created a world that was fantastic, but plausible and accessible. To me, this was an awakening. A fantasy story that could someday be true. That read like the best page-turners. Call me naive, but I didn't know science fiction could be so much fun. 

Second, I read MT Anderson's FEED. This book is entertaining and brilliantly written, but what I appreciate most are the questions that linger months--years--after I read it. This novel showed me the beauty of what ifs, much as Katy described in her blog about historical fiction. FEED had me wondering, what if we became inextricably dependent on technology? (brb. My iPhone's ringing. OK. I'm back.) What if commercialism advanced to such a point that mega-corporations shaped our every decision? (Where's my Skinny Vanilla latte? Where is it? Where???) FEED introduced me to fiction with thematic power. 

I took what I loved about these two books and tried them on a story of my own creation. A year and a half later, I have a manuscript that, to me, works on several levels. 

The characters, plot and world, thrill me for being fantastical but also fully possible of existing at some point in time. And the story stemmed from issues that interest me. It grew from my what ifs. My manuscript can get me talking about my life and this world and where I see us all going. If I want to go there, I can. 

But I could just as happily talk about my kick-butt protagonist... 

Writing a post apocalyptic story for young adults has shown me the beauty of writing a story that can both entertain a reader and open their eyes a little wider. What could be better than that? 

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We could all use a little magic in our lives.  That’s why I write fantasy.  But the reason I write romantic YA fantasy is because I know exactly how it feels to fall head over heels in love with the wrong boy at the wrong time.  

The first time it happened I was sixteen.  He was funny and cute, but he was also nineteen and way out of my league.  We sat around a table at a party, bouncing quarters into empty glasses at the home of a mutual friend whose parents were out of town.  I’d just fumbled a shot, missing the glass and sending the quarter flying to the floor.  I reached down to retrieve the coin, and when I looked back up, my entire world tilted.  He smiled at me from across the table, teasing me about my smooth backhand.   I laughed, and for once had the perfect response right when I needed it.  His answering laugh would have been enough, but it was the way he looked at me, with a spark in his eyes, that marked my heart forever.

The timing was all off.  He had already met (and kissed) my best friend the weekend before, rendering him absolutely and completely off limits.  We ended up in the same circle of friends for the next five years, and he dated my friend for two more after that.  I convinced myself that having him as a friend was enough. 

I married someone else. 

I was sad when my friend broke up with him, because I knew I would miss having him as a friend in my life.  But I moved on.  What choice did I have?

Then, after seven years of not seeing him at all, it happened again.  It was another party.  I was still in the hallway, but I saw him immediately, sitting on a couch in the back of the living room.  His eyes caught mine and the rest of the room fell away. 

I was sixteen all over again. 

It was magic. 

And it was real.

And that’s why I write YA fantasy romance.

History.  You either love it, or you hate it, right? 


Who doesn’t remember sitting in 8th grade history of civilization class, listening to the teacher drone on and on about Aristotle or the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution?  My class never quite reached the 20th Century before the school year ended and suddenly a new batch of high school students was unleashed on the world, knowing nothing of World War I or II, and little more about Western Civ because no one had actually listened or cared.  Not even me.

But today, I can tell you more about Henry VIII and his social reforms and international policies than I can about the current government of my own country.  I can gossip about his family and courtiers as if I watched “The Real Housewives of the Tudor Court” on Bravo every week.

 

Write what you know.  When I decided to kick-start my writing career, I figured this was pretty good advice.  At the time, I was a preschool teacher, surrounded by picture books, much like Donna (though I don’t have an insurance rider on my collection).  And I figured what the world needed was some really good, interesting picture books about the Tudors.

Ha.

I can’t write picture books.  I learned that in about fifteen minutes.  And I view picture book writers with utter respect and something akin to awe because they can.  So I wrote a middle-grade time-travel adventure (see previous post on the Nevada SCBWI mentorship program).  And while I was working on that, I attended a workshop on voice at a conference.  We did a writing exercise and shared our work, and at the end of it, Sydney Salter, author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters, came up to me and said, “You know, you have a really good YA voice.  Have you ever considered writing it?”  And that’s all it took.

So I write historical fiction for young adults.  I love to imagine these historical figures as real people.  I like to look at the way history has viewed them and ask the big question:  “What if?”  What if Richard III wasn’t really the ambitious megalomaniacal killer Shakespeare portrayed him to be?  What if Catherine Howard wasn’t ignorant, airheaded and promiscuous? What if Henry VIII really was just looking for love in all the wrong places?

Because I think most readers of YA novels can understand being misunderstood. 

And, ultimately, it gives me a chance to let out some really juicy gossip.  It’s just 450 years old.

This week’s blog will be all about genre -why we write what we write and what we love to read. I’m the odd ball in our group because I write in multiple genres. I write picture books and I also write books that are targeted for upper “middle grade” to younger “young adult.” Some people are calling this the “tween” market or for ages 10-14.

The truth is I don’t think much about genre before I actually write. The story itself seems to dictate the form. I read hundreds, maybe thousands, of picture books in my former life as a kindergarten teacher. When Halloween candy was coursing through their tiny veins, or the firemen had just brought the huge red truck with sirens to the school that morning, or when no classroom management strategy worked, I could always count on a picture book to calm the savage beasts (otherwise known as cute little five year olds). In only a couple of pages of a classic picture book like p.d. eastman’s Are You My Mother? or Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, or Bill Martin’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, I’d have all thirty three sitting, listening and reciting along. All it took was the magic of a picture book. I loved picture books. No really. They saved me. As a 20 year old teacher teaching all alone in the basement of a 100 year old school, I LOVED picture books. I loved them all (and I have the insurance rider on my picture book collection to prove it), but I especially loved the repetitive, patterned text that had my five year old audience chiming in at every page turn. So that’s exactly the kind of book I wrote.

When I came back to writing for children after several years out of the game, I was facing a life event that was incomprehensible. My beloved mother had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. There was no stage five. I spent a great deal of time in hospitals and doctor’s offices trying not to think of the unthinkable, that my mother could actually die. I saw family after family torn apart by the diagnosis that someone-child, mother, father, grandparent- was facing cancer, and slowly I started to write about it.

People are eating and talking and trying to be as normal as possible. Even though there are wheelchairs and IV poles and lots of hats covering bald heads. And that I think is the tidal wave – it’s the cancer –coming toward the big sunny windows outside. Every family in this cafeteria will be washed away, turned upside down, torn apart by this huge, random tidal wave and there is nothing any of us can do to predict when it will hit. They can’t stop it either. So they eat their Jello cups and drink juice with plastic straws and ignore that huge looming wave right outside the window. (from Boob Blogs by Donna Cooner)

Boob Blogs is about a girl developing breasts at the same time her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. The age group for the book was defined by the subject, so I classified it as a middle grade novel, but it definitely fit the “tween” age group. Unlike picture books, however, I hadn’t read as many children’s novels. I knew if this was now what I wanted to write, I needed to read. And so I read wonderful books like Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, 13 Reasons Why by Jay Archer and If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Some were outside the age group I was writing for, but they dealt with important, life changing topics and I feel in love with them just as I had with picture books.

After Boob Blogs it was time to write something new and I had just finished reading The Underneath, by my good friend, Kathi Appelt. The amazing sense of place in her book made me miss my homeland of Texas, something I’d wanted to write about ever since moving to Colorado almost fifteen years ago. I had also recently read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, a mystery for middle graders, and, as a long time mystery buff, was completely blown away by the intricate plotting needed for such a book. I knew I wanted to write about Texas, and I also wanted to write a mystery, so Gone Missing was born.

When I moved to Texas, I swore I would never wear cowboy boots and say, “Ya’ll.” It’s been two months (and thirteen days) and ya’ll have a way of getting to a girl. (from Gone Missing by Donna Cooner)

Now I’m on to something new, but I’m sticking with the “tween” age group for now. I’m reading lots of wonderful young adult books like Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and The Duff by Kody Keplinger to help with this new story which deals with a fifteen year old girl going through gastric bypass surgery.

For me, the secret to genre is simple. I write the kinds of books I want to read and I read the kinds of books I want to write.