[T]he first chapter is a promise to the reader. It tells them what kind of story they’re going to be getting, and what to expect. This is true, even if you don’t intend for your first chapter to do that, because it’s the way we read. Breaking that promise can frustrate, and disappoint your reader. … By the end of the first chapter, the reader should have some sense of what the main conflict of the book is going to be. They don’t need to know all the details, but they should be able to tell the genre, have a good sense of who (what type of person) the main character is, and how their world is changing.
Category Archives: Quotes
The social side of reading
[M]ore and more we’re starting to explore the social side of reading. We’re asking questions like: in a world where every store has every book, is the best store the one with the most interesting readers, connected in the most interesting ways? By connecting them, can they find books they otherwise would never have found? Or read a book more deeply? … [Sometimes] reading is about ideas that want to be shared or fought over or debated. With us, those debates can rage around the pages themselves, as they’re being read. We can connect those readers in a way that no publisher or bricks & mortar bookseller ever could.
—Michael Tamblyn of Kobo
(via Bookninja)
The hardest thing
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself.
—Katherine Mansfield,
in Letters and Journals
& The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks
Not liking something I’m trying really hard to appreciate
[T]here are cases where I like an artist a lot but hate their work. And that’s much harder for me [than when I dislike the artist but like their work], for some reason. The most common case is when it’s a friend, because then not only do I end up not liking something I’m trying really hard to appreciate, but I have to see them afterward and talk about it.
But there are people who I don’t know who I feel that way about. … I think it’s odd that if I like someone’s work, them being a jerk on a talk show has no effect. But if I hate a band and they turn out to be cool people, I’m likely to try really hard to like the music. Even after I already know I don’t!
Read Both
I think there is a trend for kids to read longer books younger, at least in the sort of community I teach in. But I don’t get the sense that this causes them to abandon picture books earlier. Rather, they read both. In my classroom today I’ve loads of picture books and the kids love for me to read them and to read them again and again on their own. Twenty years ago I focused pretty much exclusively on chapter books. So while kids seem to be reading chapter books younger they are also enjoying picture books when they are older.
[I]t was BECAUSE of picture books that [my son] was reading Stuart Little at 4, not despite them … And even now that he’s 7 and reading from the 9-12 wall at the store, we don’t eschew the picture books. When I left for work this morning, in fact, he was switching between a YA title, Silverwing, to a picture book by Jamie Lee Curtis (no shit).
One of my nieces reads much like I did as a kid, so I’ve been thinking quite a bit about kids’ books and reading recently.
I started reading when I was 4, before I started school. I don’t remember learning to read. It was like an on-off switch, I guess, much the way math always was for me. Once I figured it out, I just could. But that doesn’t mean I immediately ran out and started reading adult fiction. I was 7 or 8 when I started dabbling in grown-up stories, but it wasn’t until I was 10 that I started regularly picking up my parents’ novels and reading them before they had finished.
Although I had the ability to read pretty much anything, what I wanted to read were things I could relate to: stories with kid (or teen) protagonists, stories about school, friends & (fr)enemies, and dealing with parents and little brothers. Just because those books were too easy for me reading-level-wise didn’t mean I wanted to skip over the stories. Even after I started reading grown-up fiction, I still continued to read YA right alongside. And I’d still go back and re-read my favorite picture and chapter books on occasion.
What the people who are pushing their kids to read up seem to be clueless about is that a story can be profound even if the reading level is basic (or non-existent). David Wiesner’s Flotsam has no words, but it still tells an engaging and imaginative story, one that actually requires the reader to think more to understand it than if it had words:
I think the ability to understand/interpret story is a more difficult skill than simply being able to read. People take more or less time to learn how to read, but most eventually do. On the other hand, some people never figure out how to interpret a story on their own (as you can tell by reading reviews at places like Amazon & Goodreads).*
When one is an early reader, it’s easy to get caught up in just devouring words. For me, it wasn’t enough just to read, I had to read fast. I read so fast that I often missed plot points on my first read of a book (something I’d notice when re-reading, which fortunately I often did). A wordless picture book like Flotsam forces the power-reader to slow down to figure out the story, developing creative and analytical thinking skills. And that’s a good thing!
*Afterthought: I think this is also the reason why many wannabe writers think writing a children’s book will be easy. They are just looking at the words (surface elements) and not thinking more deeply about the story. In reality, writing a complex, nuanced story with few words and a simple vocabulary takes a great deal of skill.
Focus 100 percent on the reader
If you want to separate your story, find a way to tell it that focuses 100 percent on the reader and cuts out all the writing that is just there for your own ego. What do people want to read? I think they want to read one great story after another, with all the usual navel-gazing exposition cut out. And this is exactly what I try and get my clients to write.
Just another sort of work
[Writing a book is] very difficult. But so is losing 30 pounds or learning French or growing your own vegetables or training for a marathon … While it’s tempting to keep the idea of writing wrapped up in a glittery gauze of muse-directed creativity, it’s just another sort of work, one that requires dedication, commitment, time and the necessary tools.
Futures of the book
Dan Visel, a founder of the appropriately named Institute for the Future of the Book, points out that, first of all, a “book” can mean many things: A cookbook, a comic book, a history book and an electronic book are all animals of different stripes.
“It would be a mistake to think that these various forms have a single, unified future,” Visel says. “Rather, I think it’s more appropriate to say that there are futures of the book.” He sees some books, such as romances and thrillers, migrating easily to an electronic form.
Other types of books are not only meant to be read, but meant to be seen: Like when a New York subway rider whips out a copy of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin. “That sort of book largely has value as social display,” Visel says. “It’s not so much an instrument of revelation, because all the revelations in that book, for example, were posted online as soon as anyone could get their hands on it.”
Textbooks, phone books and other compendiums of information could perhaps serve readers better in electronic versions. In fact, Visel says, “I think the electronic book as it’s currently understood — basically a simple electronic text file — will take over a fair amount of the market that’s currently served by printed books.”
—Dan Visel,
interviewed at NPR
Serendipity
It does remove the element of serendipity. By which I mean you walk into a bookstore with the idea of getting this book and you see three or four other books that you really feel you must have but you wouldn’t have known about them unless you went into the store. So how to create in an e-version that experience of serendipity, it’s really hard.
The pleasure you get from what you are creating
A calling is fueled by the pleasure you get from what you are creating. A craving is driven by getting attention and recognition for the good work you produce.
Callings stir your pride and gratitude even if circumstances are frustrating and disheartening. Cravings leave you feeling resentful and judgmental at the end of the day and easily offended when someone doesn’t appreciate what you do. A calling keeps you moving in a specific direction. Cravings can leave you feeling lost and uncertain about your path.
The Remainder Table 