RLS (pictures I like)

"From Beyond" (a book review post)

First, yes, I am still working my way through these; I just haven't read any in a couple of months. The one thing I'm discovering about Lovecraft is that all of his stories are only of a few varieties. Over time, it makes them all blur together. The break was not purposeful; it was because every time I opened the book I found I didn't feel like reading Lovecraft at that moment, knowing exactly what to expect. I don't know if it was having had a break from him or if this was a better story than the average, but I enjoyed this one more than the last few that I read (ones I didn't bother to review individually because of a lack of things to say about them).

"From Beyond" has a slight twist on most of the stories I've read by Lovecraft so far while still having the same basic foundation. It's a story about a man, Crawford Tillinghast, who has developed a way to see the hidden worlds all around us. In this, it is very similar to most other Lovecraft stories but, in execution, it is most like "The Terrible Old Man."

This is not a new thought for me, but it's one I don't believe I've stated before in any of the Lovecraft reviews I've done:
Lovecraft seems to owe a lot to Robert Louis Stevenson and his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not that I know that Lovecraft read Stevenson, but I find it difficult to imagine that he would not have considering the similarities between the two authors in their physical conditions (both sickly) and the similarity in style of most of Lovecraft's short stories to Jekyll & Hyde. That style being an unnamed narrator telling a story about a friend suffering the consequences of, usually, some sort of insatiable curiosity. This one, "From Beyond," is closer to Jekyll & Hyde than most.

Back in the early 90s, there was a comic book, Dark Dominion, which dealt with the idea that there was a world of demons that overlapped our own. One man, Michael Alexander, was able to see these demons as they coexisted with us. It was a darkly interesting idea that ended way too soon. I don't know if Jim Shooter, the creator of the series, read Lovecraft, but you can see those same ideas in "From Beyond." I don't know of anyone earlier than Lovecraft writing about these kinds of things in this kind of way. This is not the only of Lovecraft's stories dealing with this idea, but this is the most direct, at least so far. It's short enough that I'm willing to say you should just read it.

Angel, Mr. Hyde and Vampires

Let me just say right off the bat, I am not a fan of vampires. [Pun totally intended.] I've never been into the whole vampire craze. Not in the 80s when it was driven by Anne Rice or in the 90s when it was, again, driven by Anne Rice and not in the time since when it's been driven by Twilight and True Blood and almost everything else. Seriously, I hate that whole noble vampire thing, all that tragic, romantic bullcrap that vampires have become. Give me my vampires evil..., so I can kill them.

And that's probably why I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires are evil, and we spend our time trying to kill them.

Well, except for Angel. And, well, Angel is a show I like even more than Buffy. That sounds like a conundrum, doesn't it? I mean, Angel is full of all of that tragic, romantic shhhtuff. I realized why recently that I'm okay with Angel. It's not a vampire story. Not that he's not a vampire, but that's not the kind of story it is. It's a Jekyll and Hyde story. I love Jekyll and Hyde stories.

The central conflict in Angel is man vs himself, specifically Angel vs the demon inside him. It's a story about someone seeking redemption. It just so happens that he is a vampire, but that's not the driving force of the story. It's that ongoing conflict that Angel has with himself that makes the series interesting. Good vs evil bits. Whedon does a great job with it, but you should still read Stevenson if you haven't done it.

Speaking of vampires, I appreciate that Jim Butcher has kept his vampires evil. We're gonna give Thomas a pass, because there's something else going on there. Since I'm not all the way caught up yet, I don't know if it's been revealed or not, so don't go saying anything.

None of this is to say that I haven't written my own vampire story. A short one. But he was evil, so it's okay. It was just kind of to make a point.

And all of this to say that next week is going to be vampire week here at StrangePegs. There's a new vampire story I need to review and, let me just say, it's fantastic! No, I mean it. But more on that next week. Also, in the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to tell you all about how to be a vampire. And, maybe, there'll be other stuff. I'm not quite sure, yet, what all next week will have in store for you, but there will be vampires, so stock up on garlic.

Robert Louis Stevenson and the Duality of Human Nature

After all the talk, recently, of how I so rarely re-read books, I just re-read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But it wasn't really my fault! Honest! Okay, it was a little my fault. Here's what happened:

First, there was the whole issue of Treasure Island and my son reading it which you can read about here. Then, while unpacking from moving last fall, I came across a collection of Robert Louis Stevenson stories that contained Jekyll and Hyde, and I suggested to my son that he read that, too. There was no argument, this time, and he went on to read the whole book. The issue there was that meant he'd now read a bunch of RLS that I hadn't read, because I'd never read any of the other short works in that book. And, just by the way, he loved J & H and all of the other stories except one (which he couldn't understand because it's written in heavy dialect (and I haven't gotten to that one, yet, so I haven't been able to help him with it)). Then, I did that A to Z post about J & H, and, by that point, I'd had too much, and I sat down to re-read Jekyll and the rest of that book that I had never read.

I was almost immediately struck by two things, one of them being a truck. No, I'm just kidding. I do like to walk and read, but I'm pretty good about watching where I'm going.

The first thing I was struck by is how Jekyll and Hyde would never, not ever, get published today. Have you read it? You should go read it. Really, it's not that long, and it's worth your time. Wait, why am I saying it wouldn't get published? Because the audience never gets to "see" the action. We only ever get to hear about things second hand and the details are often left out because the person telling the story can't bear to repeat them. Heck, the protagonist (Jekyll's lawyer, Utterson) only ever meets Hyde once and what we come away with from that is that he gave Utterson the an uneasy feeling. Hyde made Utterson's skin crawl. We, the audience, never witness a transformation, never experience any of Hyde's evil, and, really, barely get to meet Jekyll.

And, yet... and, yet... the whole experience is creepy and unsettling and terrifically laid out as a psychological thriller. A psychological thriller that would never get published today without becoming more active and more in the middle of the action and end up losing all the things that make it so... well... horrifying. Not that it's scary, because it's not. But the concept is pretty horrific.

It does make me wonder, though, what it was that Stevenson's wife reacted so violently to that caused him to burn his first draft. And did that thing stay in the fire or was it carried into the story we have today?

Which brings us to the second thing: Stevenson really was just fascinated with the duality of human nature. Jekyll and Hyde is, of course, his most obvious expression of that. It's the story wherein he rips a man in two and explores how we, as people, subjugate and hide (see the pun there?) our "inferior" selves. Try to deny that there is anything beyond what we show the public. And, really, it's a fascinating story, and just try to tell me you wouldn't do what Jekyll did if you had the means.

But re-reading J & H made me think about some of Stevenson's other characters. Well, it made me think about one, anyway, but I also discovered some others in these other short stories.

There's one, "A Lodging for the Night," about a poet who's a thief, which makes me wonder if that's where Bono got that line from.

And the protagonists in "Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts" (from "The Suicide Club") are these guys that like to go out in disguise so that they can do things they normally couldn't, specifically, have adventures (which sounds very much like RLS). And Scuddamore, from "Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk" (also from "The Suicide Club"), is completely double-minded and vacillates so often he may as well be a metronome.

But the big one, the character that most embodies this duality of nature, is the only other character he created that rivals Hyde for popularity: Long John Silver. And, in truth, I find Silver the scarier of the two. As portrayed in the book, Treasure Island, Silver is so smooth, I mean sooo smooth, that even once Jim and the others know he's a villain, he's still able to smooth talk his way out of trouble and connive and scheme. He's so good that, at times, I think even the reader has to doubt whether he's really a bad guy. He's completely deferential, conciliatory, and just plain nice that it makes it startling every time he's ready to slit someone's throat. You can't put the two pieces together in a way that makes sense.

But, really, haven't we all known people like that? I have. Several, in fact. Maybe they wouldn't really pull out a knife and slit someone's throat, but they'd certainly do it metaphorically. And, who knows, maybe some of them would do it for real if they had the chance. If they had a potion that would release the evil into the world in a different guise. I suppose we're lucky that that kind of thing isn't possible, because it's probably the only thing holding some people back.

Thinking about it, I'm not sure that anyone else has ever written this kind of dual character better except, maybe, Shakespeare with Iago. And Long John Silver may have the edge there, because we, the audience, always know that Iago is bad, it's just Othello that doesn't know. With Silver, we're never quite sure.

The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Jekyll and Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson spent much of his life sick. He was a sickly child that grew into a sickly adult. And he died young. Many of his tales are stories of the adventure that he must have dreamed about as a boy but couldn't have. He couldn't even go out and play pirates, because he spent so much time in bed. It's no wonder he wrote books like Treasure Island and Kidnapped!

Although most of his works are about adventure and daring-do, one particular story stands out from all the rest and has had a huge cultural impact: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Walk with me a moment...

Remember how I said that Stevenson spent most of his life sick? Well, some people believe that the medical field itself formed a large part of the inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde. Doctors looked so nice, pleasant and respectable on the outside, but they would do horrible things to you behind closed doors. Remember, Stevenson wrote Jekyll in the same time period as Wells wrote Dr. Moreau. Vivisection was common practice. Much of medicine was painful for the patient, so some believe Jekyll was social commentary. Stevenson never said so, but you can't just dismiss these things that were certainly part of what formed Stevenson's personality.

At any rate, whether it had anything to do with the dichotomy of the medical profession or not, Stevenson was incredibly interested in dual personalities. In his teens, he was intrigued with Deacon Brodie, a respectable businessman and politician in the late 1700s. [Deacon was a trade title, not a church title.] Well, apparently respectable, at any rate. At night, he was a thief, using his knowledge of people's homes (from his work which involved locksmithing) to break in. He went 20 years before he was caught and found out, and Stevenson was fascinated to the point of writing a play about Brodie while he was still in his teens. Many scholars feel this fascination with Brodie laid the foundation for Jekyll and Hyde which followed about 10 years after his play about Brodie.

Whatever the case, RLS had a dream in September or October of 1885 that he claims set the basis for Jekyll and Hyde. Or a nightmare. He was screaming, and his wife woke him up. It was Jekyll and Hyde that he was dreaming about, and he set out to write the story immediately thereafter. He wrote it at a frenzied pace, finishing his first draft in a matter of days. Most sources say his wife found it so terrifying that he burned the manuscript. But he couldn't let go of the story and, almost immediately, started on it again. The new draft was also completed in a matter of days, and it was published in January of 1886 (don't you wish things happened that quickly these days?).

It just so happened that the idea of dissociative disorders were just beginning to be formed by psychologists in the late 1800s. Starting in the 1880s, to be more exact. Prior to this, these types of episodes as RLS describes in Jekyll and Hyde would have been attributed to demon possession, but psychologists were just realizing that traumatic events in life could cause long-term disorders. It was into this intellectual field that Jekyll and Hyde sprang, and it changed the way psychology looked at dissociative identity disorders.

The idea, the wrong idea, of split personalities developed and is still popular today even if it is inaccurate. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has meaning beyond the fact that it's the name of RLS' story, and we don't use that term nicely when speaking about another person. It's a rare thing that an idea like this will escape the pages it was bound in and become a larger idea. Like Frankenstein. But it's an idea that has shaped more than a generation of thought and had a huge impact on actual science and scientific thought. Because a writer was fascinated with an Idea. In this case, the idea that one man, one person, could, in truth, be more than just one man.

Just to put into perspective how popular Jekyll and Hyde was: It sold 40,000 copies in its first six months of publication. This was astounding at the time. By 1901, it had sold more than 250,000 copies. This was at a time when the common person on the street couldn't read at more than the most basic level. Many couldn't even write their own names. Public readings of Jekyll and Hyde were not uncommon.

So... a thing, an Idea, doesn't have to become tangible to become real. Ideas that shape society are just as real as, say, an automobile or an airplane.

Unexpected Applause: The Fourth Wish

My latest Unexpected Applause piece is The Fourth Wish by Elizabeth Varadan. Along with my own views on the book, I am going to add in my younger son's (middle child), since he fits the target audience. And he's having a different experience with the book than I did, so I think it will provide a more rounded picture. Just a note about my son (for those of you that may have missed me talking about this stuff previously): he's the most well-read 10-year-old I've ever known (or heard of). It's not just that he reads a lot (he does), but he's very eclectic in his reading choices. He's read Kafka (how many adults can say that?), Dumas, and RL Stevenson (more Stevenson than me, actually). He's also read Eddings, Douglas Adams, and (currently) Zahn. All of that to say that his view is worthwhile not just because he's in the target audience but because he has a good spread of prior reading material to base it on.

Let's deal with the technical stuff first. Grammar and editing. Fun. But it wasn't too bad. Especially for a piece that wasn't done professionally. The biggest (real) issue is that there are places where there's a word missing here and there. Those always throw me. [I can't complain about this too much, though, as I know of at least one spot in The House on the Corner where I have a missing word (actually, it's just a missing letter, but it changes the word. So far, no one else seems to have noticed).] It can be a hard job to catch all of those things in your own work, and, overall, it's not too bad. There are some comma errors, especially when the author chose to begin a sentence with a conjunction and follow it immediately with a comma when there wasn't a dependent clause present, i.e. "But, I wanted to." When there is just the one independent clause following a conjunction, a comma should not be there. This is one of those pet peeves I have, so I found those annoying. Still, as the only real (consistent) grammar error in the book, I can't complain about that one, either (I mean, more than I am). The only other issue is the author's use of question marks in many places when the sentence is not interrogative. I actually asked her about these, and she said they were purposeful, to show the inflection of the speaker, but I found them more confusing than anything. [I'm waiting to see how my son reacts to them as they are more prominent toward the end of the book, and he is still shy of half.] If I was grading the book (which I sort of am), I'd give it a B on its technical merits, which is pretty good, I'd say.

The story is where I ran into some problems. But, then, it may just be a function of being about 30 years past the target audience. I was unable to engage with the story and the characters. My son, however, is fully engaged. This is one of those stories where the status quo becomes disturbed, and the characters spend the rest of the story trying to put things back the way they were. Possibly, while learning a lesson or two along the way. Mostly about appreciating what you have or being satisfied with your circumstances because they're not as bad as they could be. The vehicle for this is wishes...

I'll make an example of the magic show at the beginning of the book. Once the first wish is made, I found the magic show to be predictable and cliche, but my son loved it. And I don't really want to give any of it away, so I'll leave it at that.

I suppose I'll just say what didn't work for me:

The second wish seemed to just arbitrarily fail. Yes, the wish was supposed to fail so that things good get more messed up, but, really, it wasn't significantly different from wish that fixed everything, so that bothered me.

Daisy's Doughnuts. The whole place just seemed to be yanked out of the 50s, so it just didn't seem right to me. Plus, the kids, inexplicably, bring Christmas gifts to "Daisy;" although, they don't seem to have any special relationship with her that would warrant that.

Speaking of Christmas, the revelation that it is Christmas comes quite a bit farther into the book than I was comfortable with. It took me by surprise, and I had to readjust my view of what was going on in the story.

There's no real motivation for several of the primary characters. At least, none that I could fathom. Especially for Mrs. Seraphina.

And what did work for me:

The relationship between Arthur and Cory and the way they interact with Melanie (even if there wasn't a reason behind the whole "Scorpion Queen" thing (sorry, but that's the kind of nickname you want to know where it came from)).

Melanie's diary and her collection of postcards from her dad.

The struggle of a single mom trying to raise her kids while she's off working all the time and the pressure that puts on the oldest child.

Mostly, though, the story just never came together for me. Not that it was a struggle to read (I mean, there were no feelings of dread any time I stepped near the book like there was with that Turtledove novel I talked about a while back); it wasn't. I just felt like I was back where I started from when I finished and that nothing significant had happened. Now, that may not actually be true if there is to be a sequel, but, as it is, nothing significant happened.

But! See, my son, he likes the book. When I gave it to him, I just told him to read the first few chapters to see what he thought about it. I sort of expected him to give the book back to me and tell me he didn't like it. But, instead, when I asked him about it, he said, "I like it. You're not... you're not going to take it back, are you?" Because it's my book, and he thought I was only letting him read three chapters. It made me laugh. But the book is laying next to his bed, and, I'm sure he'd be finished with it already if he wasn't reading two other books when I gave it to him.

All of that to get to the point:

I think this is probably an above average middle grade book as long as you're one of those middle graders. From an adult perspective, I see it as a pretty typical story, and it didn't thrill me, but my son thinks it's a lot of fun. I'd certainly recommend it for anyone in the 8-12 range. As far as I can tell, it ought to appeal fairly equally to boys and girls. It has a female lead, but my son is enjoying it just fine, so I don't think the central female character is too off-putting for boys.

For a comprehensive grade, I'd give it a C+ to a B-. Currently, I'm leaning toward the C+, but that could change based on my son's final evaluation. Heck, if my daughter likes it, it could go up to a B. At any rate, if you have or know kids that like to read and are in the age range, it's a book worth checking out. If nothing else, it should be fun for them.

And then you can listen to them go on about how to go about getting 5 ka-billion doughnuts for themselves!

"Danger, Will Robinson!" pt. 5: Starting in the Middle

Okay, it's time for a little bit of controversy!
Maybe, a lot bit.

My educational experience was not typical. Of course, at the time, I didn't realize how not typical it was since it was all public education. I went through this thing called the Gateway Program for Gifted and Talented children (starting in elementary school). To complicate matters, I also went to a (public) high school for smart kids (middle school, too). As my brother used to say, not only did I go to Nerd school, but I was one of the top nerds at Nerd school since the Gateway program had specially accelerated classes in a school that was already accelerated. I only bring all of this up because I was exposed to some things in school that, evidently, are not generally taught.

Like plot structure.

As early as 5th grade, I was learning the details of plot structure in my English classes. As far as I can tell, this is not something that's generally taught in the regular public school system (anywhere). I asked my about-to-be-a-sophomore about this the other day, and he told me they learned that stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. From what I've gathered, I'm almost surprised they went into that much detail, since it seems to be a topic that isn't really discussed before college level. And not much in college. I have a BA in English, and I covered more on the aspects of writing before I got to college than I ever did while I was there.

For just a moment, before we get into the heart of all of this, take a little ride with me. It's a roller coaster ride, so get yourself ready.

Since you're all my VIP guests, we're going to skip the line. This time. This is the stuff you should leave out of your plot. Although there can be some entertaining stuff during the wait in line, you spend most of the time saying, "this line is sooo long," "this is so boring," and "how much longer is the wait?" You don't want the riders on your roller coaster saying these kinds of things about your work. Let me put this another way, this is stuff that's not essential to the story.

So we're getting on the roller coaster having skipped the line. Getting our seats, getting strapped in, and waiting for everyone else to get strapped in. This is the exposition of our ride. Here's the thing, many people consider this part boring, too, but this is the time we establish the essentials of our plot. Characters. Setting. Conflict. This is the basis for our ride. It prepares us for the journey and keeps the riders safe. You don't, after all, want any one to fall out. Remember, we may be required to sit for a few moments while the operator checks everything and gets the coaster going, but this time is important. This is when you start anticipating the ride. What will it be like? Will it be scary? Will the person in front of me puke? This is stuff that is essential to your story.

Eventually, the coaster begins to move, and we enter the rising action. During this phase of our journey, our anticipation builds. Sometimes, there are unexpected turns. Sometimes, there are sudden dips, and we race down for a moment, but we know we haven't reached the "big one," yet, because we can still see that high hill rising above us. Sometimes, we're plunged into darkness by entering a tunnel, and we don't have any idea what's going on around us (for those of you that like to keep your readers in the dark). Still, through all of this, we continue to go up and up.

The ride's been fun, but, finally, we are on that last ascent. The rest of the track fades away beneath us. We grip tight to the hand bar, or, possibly, raise our hands, depending upon how brave (or foolhardy) we are. We begin to hear the screams of the people at the front, and we clamp our jaws in final anticipation as we arrive at the climax. Our stomachs lurch as the coaster drops beneath us, dragging us into a rushing descent of falling action.

The coaster glides through it's final approach, our denouement (or resolution), slowing us down until we reach the point of departure and get off. We begin to talk about how great the ride was or, possibly, how lame it was. "Did you see that second turn coming? I totally did!" "I was completely caught off guard by that dip into the tunnel." "That last turn before the last hill was so cool!" Things like that. Hopefully, no one is saying "the whole thing sucked."

Where, in all of this, is the problem? The controversy?

We have a culture, here in the States, of instant gratification. Maybe that attitude is everywhere, at this point; I don't know (I don't live everywhere). We don't want to wait for anything. Why should we? Like Veruca Salt, we want it NOW! All of us. All the time. This is destroying the way books are written. Yes, I'm saying it. It's destroying the way books are written. The one thing I see most repeated blog after blog is this "rule" of writing. I see it on agent blogs everywhere. Constantly. Most unfortunately, I see unpublished writers pummeling each other over the head with this all the time. The holy mantra of the writing community: Start in the middle of the action.

I'm here to tell you, right now, that rule is wrong. That rule says that we should not only get to skip the line to the roller coaster but that we should also get to skip the exposition and much if not all of the rising action. We should be dropped suddenly into our seats just moments before the we get to that last climb. It's wrong. But we have a whole generation of writers who are listening to this bad advice.

In my last Danger post (read it here), I talked about the whole "flash forward" thing that's been happening in TV shows (and, to a lesser extent, movies). This is a direct response to the whole "start in the middle of the action" thing. It doesn't breed better TV shows. It's completely about catching the viewers interest so they'll sit and watch. In short, it's about the money. That's what the whole "rule" is about. Money. Publishers know that when people are flipping through books trying to decide what to buy, they often glance at the first few pages. They're trying to hook the reader into buying regardless of the quality of the story. It's a short term view of writing, and it's bad.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds so logical. When I first started doing my blogging thing and started seeing this idea thrown around, I was initially taken in, too. I mean, sure, yeah, start in the middle of the action. Leave out the boring stuff. It sounds so reasonable. Just give readers the stuff they want to read. At this point, though, that comes across to me as "give the readers junk food." Seriously, if we let kids eat what they want to eat, how many of them would ever eat veggies? And based on the growing numbers of childhood obesity cases, how many parents are really doing the work of making sure their kids are eating right?

I hear what you're saying. But reading is good! Shouldn't we promote reading at all costs? Even if it means starting in the middle of the action? At least, they're reading, right? Sure, yeah, that's true. To an extent. However, I'm going to point at two of the most beloved series of all time: The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. Neither of these series resorts to "starting in the middle of the action." They both have a very significant exposition stage which moves smoothly into rising action. I would say it's that quality that causes us to love those books so much. Sure, we enjoy other books. Books that jump right into it. But we go back again and again to Potter and the Pevensies.

The problem in all of this is that we, as unpublished writers, tend to listen to agents. Agents listen to publishers. The publishers, at least the big ones, only listen to money. Especially right now while the publishing world is in such chaos. They want books that will grab the readers right there on the first page and make them want to buy it just like those TV shows that start at the end and then flash "48 hours earlier" on the screen. I hate it. All of it. This manipulation of writers and readers for the monetary gain of the publisher. It doesn't promote good reading, and it certainly doesn't promote good writing. In fact, it forces the writer to sacrifice the integrity of his/her story for the gain of the publisher.

Here's what brought this all home for me and opened my eyes to the extent of this problem:

We have required reading in our family. Before you say anything, that's a topic for another time. It's like getting kids to eat their vegetables. At first, you have to make them do it. At this point, we're still working on my daughter, but that's beside the point. Although, my boys love to read, they are pretty satisfied to just read what they like. However, I think it's good for them to try new things. A few months ago, I came across my old copy of Treasure Island. It's a great book. I loved that book when I was a kid, and it's a classic, so I thought it would be a good book for my younger boy (middle child) to try out (because the oldest is reading The Lord of the Rings (his choice, not a parent suggestion)). We struggled with that book for weeks. Seriously, it took him, like, two weeks to get to the second chapter. I just couldn't understand it.

I did what I could. I encouraged him to keep working on it while he was reading other stuff. I told him how much I had enjoyed the book as a kid. I also explained to him that he needed to give the book a chance. Just because a book doesn't grab you on  the first page, or, even, in the first chapter, doesn't mean it's a bad book. We also had several long talks about trying new things, which is a conversation we have to have frequently (several times a week) in dealing with food, and expanding horizons.

It took him a while, but, by chapter four, I found him picking up Treasure Island without any prompting. When he finished it, he actually  thanked me for making him read it after grudgingly acknowledging that he'd really enjoyed it. (He hates admitting to liking something that he has sworn is gross. You should see him trying to figure out how to ask for more of some food that he's spent the previous half hour declaring that he hates.) That was the moment, the moment when he said, "Thanks for making me read that, Dad," that I realized what a wrong thing we are doing in climbing on the bandwagon with all the "start in  the middle of the action" supporters.

Treasure Island is not a book that would find publication today. At least, not in  the form that it's currently in. I imagine publishers today would want to skip right to boarding the ship or, possibly, even to the point where Jim is in the apple barrel.  We would never meet the Captain, the spectral figure of old blind Pew (who forms the basis for more characters in modern fiction than I can count), or witness the horrifying delivery of the Black Spot. Well, maybe in flashback, but that just wouldn't deliver the same impact. Kidnapped, also by Robert Louis Stevenson, is more action packed than Treasure Island, and I remember loving it. Loving it way more than Island. However, I can't remember anything else about Kidnapped, just that I loved it. The images from Treasure Island have stayed with me my whole life so carefully crafted are they. Being his first novel, the fact that Treasure Island would be considered unpublishable would have likely killed his entire career. Can you imagine if he had never made it to the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

The horrifying fact is that if we applied this idea of starting in the middle of the action to most of the books we consider classics, we would mangle them and diminish them. Harry Potter would likely lose chapters; my guess would be a beginning not before he is boarding the train to Hogwarts. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe wouldn't start before all the children journeyed into Narnia together to immediately discover Tumnus' wrecked cave. And The Hobbit? Probably where he's racing to join the dwarves at the Green Dragon. Certainly not before that. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.

There's nothing wrong, specifically, with starting a book in the middle of the action if that's how you, the author, want to do it. The problem is with the insistence that that is the way to do it. The insistence that that is how you write a better book. It's not how you write a better book. It may be how you sell more books (in the short run), but it's not how you get better books from authors. Good books have complete plots, and that includes an exposition.

The greatest danger, though, is that this style of writing, starting mid-action and making the reader sort of catch up as s/he goes, is teaching the current generation of young readers to live on the equivalent of literary fast food. It's quick. It's easy. There's no work required. There's no work, because there's no substance. Nothing to actually digest. It dissolves just like cotton candy. That's probably why I disliked the first Percy Jackson so much (the only one I've read). The book just has no substance. The movie had more substance to it than the book, which is an oddity, but it's probably why I enjoyed the movie. I kept expecting more from the book, but it never delivered.

Personally, I want my work to have substance. Cotton candy is great once a year at the fair, but I don't want to try and live off of it. I feel like we're allowing our kids to do so when we cave to the demands of agents and publishers to stick to just the portions of the story that move the plot forward. Keep to the action. Seriously? That would mean no Fred and George Weasley, who are my favorite characters from Harry Potter. They rarely move the plot forward, but they are a whole lot of fun. No Beorn. No Tom Bombadil. Again, I could go on.

Let's look back at our roller coaster for just a moment. The power of discernment, as the author, comes in knowing when we leave the line and board the roller coaster. Yes, you do want to cut out the sections that are just waiting in line, but you do want to keep the parts that are the beginning of the ride. Even if the ride starts slow. As the author, you get to choose that. Yes, this bit is slow moving, but it's essential to what's going to happen later. Even if it's only essential in  that it ties us to the characters, gives us a connection to them. There's nothing worse than a reader not having an emotional investment in your character(s), than just not caring what happens to them. That's what allows a reader to set your book down and say, "You know what? I just don't care." When you don't give the reader a chance to bond with your characters through a strong exposition, this is what you risk. At that point, your hope is to zip the reader through quickly enough that they never realize they didn't care what happened.

This is what it comes down to for me:
Francis Bacon said, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

I want to write books that need to be chewed and digested. That beg to be chewed and digested. Heck, I'd settle for writing books that just need to be swallowed. Publishers don't care about any of that. They just need books that will be tasted. Quick and easy. And forgotten. They want readers to keep tasting book after book. That's how they make their money. If that's all you want as a writer, though, agents (and publishers) give good advice, and you should certainly go that route. Being tasted is just not what I aspire to.

Or, maybe, I'm just contrary.
That's always a possibility.