Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much.

I think one of the things Twilight does do well is explore the beauty, intensity, and untamed nature of a girl's sexual awakening. I might roll my eyes at the overblown language when I read about Edward sparkling in the sun, but that's exactly how it feels. I'm about to be heterosexist for a while - forgive me.

When a girl looks at a guy's chest (ass, crotch, arms, hands, back - you get the idea) and gets her first nose full of hot testosterone, your entire being flips around. Trust me when I tell you that Bella's rhapsodizing about Edward's crystalline skin is pretty damn tame compared to the things girls think about when they discover just what that turns them on.

Fiction allows us to revisit the cathartic, life-changing moments of our existences. A woman's first flush of arousal is so amazing, so overwhelming, and so important that we read to reinforce all the lessons we learn from it. We get to find that wonderful, ripe, glorious feeling of sexuality, of power, of delight in our bodies, without the negative side effects of judgment, dissatisfaction, or shame.

I think reclaiming that moment of pure ownership of our senses is something all humans must do. The chills, the excitement, the way the hormones made you feel like champagne flowed through your veins instead of mere blood - the world needs more of that joyous feeling.

If you're a writer, go write some thing that makes you remember an awakening. If you express yourself in other ways, do that instead. If you are in love, tell that someone that you desire how maddening their scent is or the brush of their skin on yours makes you moan.

Reclaim that tension that Bella has discovered again for us.

Writers helping each other.

At a previous Romance Writers of America conference, Renee Ryan had presented a workshop on layering. For those not obsessed with writing, that's the process of taking your draft and adding all those things that make a book memorable. Nancy really like the recording, emailed Renee, and got her notes from the workshop. Then she shared them with me.

Here is Renee Ryan's layering process:

1. Finish your first draft. This can be a draft of a scene, a chapter, or even your whole book.
2. Layer in movement - character movement, the world around them.
3. Layer in the five senses
4. Layer in the setting - after all, the environment is a character in and of itself
5. Layer in the emotion
6. Layer in the dialog
7. Layer in the backstory
8. Layer in the sexual tension
9. (and I added this one) Layer in the theme

I've been trying this for the last few days, and I am thrilled! Breaking down the process this way has really helped my revisions, especially after all the cutting I've done. 

Back in the saddle. Again.

So while I'm engaging in my massive revisions, it's time to revisit my previously posted Twilight series.

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Ok, back to In Defense of Twilight, even though I hate it: Part Three.

As you may or may not know, I have a degree in Library and Information Science. Save the Dewey Decimal jokes - I've heard them all. We're going into the jungle of literary criticism today.

Library school gives you amazing perspective on popular culture. The criticisms aimed at Twilight for being misleading, wrong-headed, and a bad example to our youth have been fired at writing as far ranging as Harry Potter to E. B. White to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew to Tom Swift.

Yes, I'm serious.

Literary critics used to claim that reading these kinds of books as akin to feeding your child poison. After all, children are weak minded, you know. Now remember that women are told the same things about their reading choices.

To all the people who tell me that Twilight is going to tell women to fall for a gross, stalkery freak, I have one thing to say.

Women are not stupid.

Could it be possible that females are perfectly capable of discerning the difference between fantasy and reality??

When a young woman makes a poor choice in a mate, the example she's using comes from up close and personal observation of adults around her.

Not fictional characters.

If we honestly thought that women yearned for maltreatment, why don't we believe that every man reading a James Bond novel yearns to be shot, stabbed, tossed out of airplanes, dunked in arctic ice cold water, and have no emotional life to speak of?

Of course that is ridiculous - because we don't think men are stupid.

Why should we think our girls are stupid, impressionable, and helpless? Reading about Waif Bella does not turn a girl into a passive Waif. Reading about James Bond, the man with no sense of self-preservation, does not make a boy into a moron who thinks that getting shot is just business as usual.

Twilight (and romance) is popular because girls and women know it is fantasy. They get to experience what it is like to be passive Bella, or pretend they are dangerous Edward (more on that next time), or even learn how very wet the Pacific Northwest is.

What would the world look like if we believed that women were smart?

Current Shenanigans

This is what I've been working on lately.

I broke down each chapter into its component scenes, figured the date/time, whose POV is the scene in, a one line description of the scene, and the page number.

I think I'm making good progress - especially in cutting the parts that take away from the main story and making what I've got more exciting and focused.

Wish me luck!

Repost:: Examples of the Waif

The prototype of The Waif is, of course, Cinderella. Some say Sleeping Beauty was a Waif, but I always felt her passivity was born out of her family keeping her ignorant of her danger instead of teaching her how to save herself.

Other famous Waifs are:

Ilsa Laszlo in Casablanca
Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Amanda in The Glass Menagerie

Bella fits right in.

Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much, Part Two.

Today is the discussion of the Return of the Waif. *insert drum flourish here*

For anyone who is not as insane for archetypes as I am, here is quick introduction to The Waif from The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Cowden, LaFever, and Viders.

The Waif projects a child-like innocence, a soul-stirring susceptibility. She is naive, enigmatic, yet reslient. Everyone she meets wants to save her, but she can surprise people with her incredible inner strength and fortitude. She touches the vulnerable place deep inside all of us with her soft touch and wistful glance.... Her delicate fragility makes her an easy target. She always seems between a rock and hard place. She adapts to any situation she falls into without complaint. The Waif does not fight back; instead, she endures untold hardships untils she is rescued. (pg 76)

Bella is the Waif. Her purity is not merely her virginity, but also a sense of being unspoiled by greed, temper, or the cruelties of the world. She is also trusting and (more or less) kind. I personally find she is far too good of an example of the failings of the waif: impressionable, passive, insecure, and isolated. (pg. 77) As a Waif, Bella lets other people control her destiny, rather than pursuing her own interests. She's not even sure what her interests are.

Fairly obviously, the Waif has fallen out of favor with modern writers. I personally find it dull to write someone who refuses to act. But there is a reason why she is making a resurgence in literature.

The Waif appeals to the exhausted side of our personalities. The Waif rarely fights back or initiates action. Instead, she allows life to surprise her and take her where it goes.

Even the most motivated of self-starters get tired. There is something refreshing about letting go and allowing something or someone else to run your existence. And wouldn't it be restful to expect the best once in a while, rather than always anticipating the worst?

I think readers like Bella because everyone needs someone to take care of them every so often. It feels good to imagine taking your hands off the plow and letting another person till the soil.

I must admit, though, that I like it when a Waif decides to risk the blisters and dirt of her own labor.

I wonder if Bella ever will.