Epistolary Novel

An epistolary novel is one written as a series of documents, usually an exchange of letters between characters. That is what this week's review book, Les Liaisons dangereuses, is.

The first epistolary novel was the Spanish Carcel de amor (Prison of Love) published around 1485. It caught on fairly well, in other countries and languages.

The dramatic, romantic nature of the genre led to a great deal of ridicule, however. Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) was closely followed by a parody by Henry Fielding: Shamela (1741) wherein the titular character pens her letters under unlikely dramatic circumstances.

Even Jane Austen gave the genre a fair shake with Lady Susan, but abandoned the form for her later work. Some people believe that First Impressions (her lost novel) was an epistolary novel that was redrafted into Pride and Prejudice because of the number of letters included in the latter.

While it fell out of popularity during the 18th century, it hung on by way of some of the 19th century classics, particularly Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There has been a small resurgence of the epistolary form since the advent of email and IMs, but not in any major works.

There are three kinds of epistolary novels: monologic (one-way correspondence), dialogic (two-way correspondence), and polylogic (more than two people corresponding).

Les Liaisons dangereuses is a polylogic epistolary novel. My personal favorite epistolary novel is probably We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver, which is monologic. What's your favorite, and what kind is it?

Allusion

Remember in middle school English class, when you learned all those literary terms like alliteration and hyperbole and denouement? One of them was allusion, and it's one that has bothered me for a long time.

The image above is a literary allusion. Do you recognize what it's alluding to? I do, because I grew up in the United States of America from the 1980s to now. I might still recognize it if I grew up in dozens of other countries around the world, in other decades, or if I spoke other languages. But that's only because it's from the most published and most translated and most sold book in the entire world. For goodness' sake, it was the first book printed by movable type!

This image, too, is a literary allusion. But a far greater number of people wouldn't "get" it. (It's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, if you're one of the ones who doesn't.)

And therein lies my problem with allusions. If you aren't familiar with the piece being alluded to, you can't enjoy the piece in front of you. Or maybe you can, but not on the level the author planned. That might even happen if you know what they're talking about, but you haven't interpreted it in the same way they did, or the way they thought you would.

I don't know if Stephanie Meyer did it on purpose, or even if it worked, but I can only hope that the popularity of Twilight boosted the popularity of Pride and Prejudice. (It may be impossible to tell, given the publication of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies one year after the release of the first Twilight movie.) But Bella keeps referring back to the Jane Austen book she reads over and over again, as an - admittedly obvious - way to better describe the relationship developing between herself and Edward. (That's another thing that irks me about allusions... The attitude is often, "If you can't write it well enough yourself, rely on the ability of those who came before you." It also points out very obviously where you took most of your ideas from.)

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is full of allusions, because it's referring to the books that the firemen are burning. When Guy Montag picks up a book and reads it, it is more fitting that he read something we - as readers - can associate with. If he picks up a fictional book-within-a-book, (1) it feels more like a deus ex machina that Bradbury dropped in to move things along, and (2) we don't care about it nearly as much. Granted, the first time I read this book, I didn't know that the "lillies of the field" bit was from the Bible, and every time I've read it since, I've been an atheist, but the Bible (as I mentioned above) is an important part of a large percentage of the world's history, and to burn every copy of it would not only be a monumental task, but a terribly destructive one, in the sense that an enormous part of history would suddenly be gone, and inaccessible to future generations. You feel more invested in the story when you know all of that, and the allusion has succeeded in adding layers to the story.

Dylan Thomas's poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" is a big deal in the Matched trilogy. A lot of other poems and books pop up, at varying levels of importance (at one point in Crossed, a mention is made of an unnamed novel by Ray Bradbury, and given the fact that they burn books that don't belong in the Society, I can't help but think it's the one I mentioned above). Knowing about them beforehand can be helpful in understanding the plot and characters, but the important ones get repeated often enough (and in pieces, to emphasize the particularly important parts at that time) and interpreted in enough detail by the characters to serve as an introduction to them and some of their possible meanings without being didactic. I think Condie's background as an English teacher helps here, without being overwhelmingly obvious as a poetry lesson.

When done well (subtle introductions; introducing multiple possible meanings through the characters' thoughts and dialogue; breaking the alluded-to piece down and repeating often enough to remind the reader but not so often they get sick of it) allusions can help a story. When done badly (not enough explanation for those unfamiliar with the reference; too much explanation to force an interpretation on the reader; making tenuous ties between mostly unrelated things; letting on that the author stole all their other ideas from the referenced work as well) it can ruin the entire story.

What are some of the most notable examples of allusion you've noticed in your reading? How do you feel about them?

Some Signs Related to Reading

No, I don't know ASL... but I'm learning. And one of my favorite resources ever is lifeprint.com. The guy who created the website does an excellent job of explaining the subtle differences between similar signs, breaking down complex signs into tiny pieces, and demonstrating how to incorporate signs into sentences.

Here's a great example: read.

(There is also a short video for each sign, but I can't link directly to certain pages of the dictionary.)

Sometimes the signs are illustrated instead of demonstrated, especially for simpler signs, like book.

I simply wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't show you how to say library:

Easy, right? You can say librarian by adding the following after you say library:

(That part is kind of like "agent" but it gets used for a lot of signs that boil down to "a person who works in a [type of building/establishment]".)

Now go practice! And a huge thank you to Dr. Bill, creator of the amazing lifeprint.com.

Plagiarism is Whack, Yo.

We've all been told that plagiarism is wrong.  But what, exactly, constitutes plagiarism. If you match one or two words are you copying someone's work, or do you need to steal entire paragraphs?

Dictionary.com defines it as: 

an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of 

another author without authorization and the representation of that author's 

work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author

So what does that mean, exactly?  Let's say you're writing a paper for school and there is this hella-awesome quote that you like.  You take it, and you copy and paste it directly into your paper... but you don't ever mention that you didn't write it.  That would be plagiarism.

Now, let's say we take that same quote, you slap some quotes around it and then the author and page number from the book you took it from.  At the end of your paper, you put the book in the bibliography   That's perfectly fine and even encouraged!  You're supporting your paper, but acknowledging that you didn't write the phrase.

Now, what about phrases you've heard everywhere?  Take the Mr. Luther King Jr. "I have a dream" quote.  Since this particular quote is so wide-spread, so readily available, you wouldn't have to quote a specific book.  You would simply have to state something along the lines of As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "I have a dream."  There was no direct book or written source that you took it from, but you're still acknowledging you didn't say/write it.

As long as you don't copy word for word, you're good, right?

WRONG!

Let's say you write a song.  It's big and famous and then, two years later, someone ELSE writes a song incredibly similar to it.  THEY'RE plagiarizing  or as it's more commonly known, committing copyright infringement.

Some good examples of this are I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis & the News and the Ghostbusters Theme Song.  The movie originally approached HL&TN and, when Huey turned it down, approached someone else, whose song is almost identical to Huey's I Want a New Drug.  The two songs are incredibly close.  Go listen to them.

The tune to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby also is eerily similar to Queen's Under Pressure.  After initially denying that he had copied "Under Pressure", later Vanilla Ice admitted that he had sampled the song.

Want to get a clearer picture of what plagiarism is?  Wikipedia is always a good place to start, along with plagiarism.org.

"Is your dialogue believeable?" she asked.

I hope everyone enjoyed our little April Fool's entry yesterday. :)  No, there is no actual book.  It was just a made up book.  We thought you'd be entertained.

On to bigger and better things!  DIALOGUE!  Dialogue can be a pretty hard thing to write.  Mainly because the things you want to say in your head are these epic sayings!  And you know exactly how you want to say it and exactly how it should be.  When you put it to paper, however, it may not be as epic as you imagined in your head.

So I'm going to give you a few tips on how to write believable (if not good) dialogue.

Rule #1: Tone down the vocabulary.

You have a fantastic vocabulary.  Great!  However, your characters probably shouldn't be using words like "hitherto" or "aforementioned" (even though that's just about one of my favorite words ever.)  Most people (sadly) do not have ridiculous vocabularies and, unless you're me and my group of friends, most people don't use those vocabularies even if they do have them.

So keep it simple when using actual dialogue.  I'm not saying you can't even use a big word in speech, but it shouldn't be your time to show off the words you know.  ESPECIALLY if you're characters are teenagers.  Teenagers don't use ridiculous words.  They use slang and shortcuts and their own code practically.

I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule (Cassandra in "I See" is one of them); I'm just saying that vocab should usually be cut down on in speech.

Rule #2: Say it out loud.

If you feel like an idiot saying it out loud, chances are your character shouldn't be saying it either.  Sentences like, "But John!  I don't think I could live without you!" are cheesy and unrealistic.  Say that sentence out loud to yourself.  Go on, do it.  Feel like an idiot?  Imagine if you were actually saying it TO someone.

People don't talk like that.  And I understand that it can be hard to tell if the dialogue is getting away from you.  Saying it out loud, the way you imagine the character would say it in the book, fixes bad dialogue every time. 

Rule #3: Less is More

We all remember my post on "Show, Don't Tell" and dialogue is a place you have to watch that just like in the rest of your novel.  I understand the impulse to want to explain everything through your character's words, but think of it in terms of your life.

Read the dialogue.  Would you say all that to someone you know?  Or would they get bored halfway through?  Is all that information really necessary?  Or would a best friend tell you to shut up because she gets the point?  That's how you have to think when you write dialogue.  It's speech, one character to another.  Leave the detailed descriptions to the narration.

Theses are three good guidelines to writing dialogue.  Follow them, and you'll be on your way to writing dialogue with the best of them.

Gender Roles in Literature

Gender roles are actually a big deal in literature, if you really pay attention.  They've changed, drastically, over the years.  For instance, if you look at a novel like Jane Austen's, women were meant to be married and constantly have men take care of them, rescue, escort them, run their lives.  If you didn't have a good marriage, then nothing else in your life was really pertinent.  Even though Austen had smart, independent women in her book, they were still confined to specific roles (however, Austen's first line of Pride & Prejudice seems to be a commentary on the absurdity of it all.)

Today, literature leans more towards books that have independent  self-sufficient women who tend to be equal, or better than, their male counterparts.

We see a LOT of this happening in YA literature.  Take The Hunger Games, for example.  Katniss was the one who supported her family, who did the hunting (both of which are usually roles assigned to males).  Katniss inevitably saved her sister from the arena.  Even when she was in the arena, she relied heavily on herself and was the one who had to help Peta.

If you read our review of Starters, you'll see the same trend.  Callie is the one to protect her brother after her parents die.  She is the one who works so hard for everything that she has, and, the one who risks everything, and inevitably exposes everything.

However, traditional gender roles are extremely prevalent in literature today.  The most obvious place that we see this is in Romance novels and Chick Lit.  The market is filled with women who can't seem to function until a man comes and saves her.  Twilight is an excellent example of female dependence on a male.  Bella is constantly getting herself in trouble or having accidents, causing Edward (or Jacob) to have to save her.  Even though, at the very end of the very last book, this role changes for a very short amount of time, it doesn't really counteract the theme of the first three and a half books where she needs Edward to protect her.

Gender roles even appear in our Children's books.  Though, in recent years, girls are just as productive as boys.  Take, for instance, in Harry Potter, Hermione always has to save not only Ron, but also Harry.  If not for her knowledge, they would have died, minimum, seven times.  Or what about Winnie The Pooh, a book where a boy plays with stuffed animals, a role general assigned to little girls.  There are still children's books that throw women into the stereotypical gender roles. Fairy tales are an excellent example of this.  Initially, they weren't meant for kids, but today, we market a lot of them towards young girls.  We tell them that they are beautiful princesses, whose only job is to wait for a handsome, rich, male who can save her from the big bad.

Gender roles are everywhere, and even though a book may seem to break them, you can always try the age old Bechdel Test.

Graphic Novels and Layout

I'm going to briefly mention this tomorrow, when I tell you what Shane Smith did right in his graphic novel The Lesser Evil, Pt. 1, but I would like to explain a few things about the importance of layout in graphic novels (and other visual media).

 This is a basic layout you'll find in most graphic novels. Even if each panel isn't solid (it could be broken into two, three, four across) it's a standard way to divide the page. This is used when events of equal importance are being conveyed. No one panel will draw more attention than the others due to placement or size. (There might be huge letters, bright colors, extreme close-ups, or a particular image that could draw the eye, but mostly, this is for similarly-important events that deserve generally equal attention.)

This is another fairly basic example, with one panel given more attention than the others. You could do this horizontally instead, with a cluster of small panels at the top, and a larger panel consuming the bottom half of the page. Personally, I prefer this vertical layout, because it makes the intended order of the smaller panels obvious. (If you had four panels in a square format at the top, you might wonder if you should go across first or down first. With these, you clearly read top-to-bottom.) There are also many interesting ways to use a tall vertical panel. One of my favorites that I've seen was peeking out from behind the silhouetted leg of our hero, at a harsh landscape with bad guys approaching. Very effective.

Staggered panels can emphasize feelings of uncertainty (particularly in the characters' future) or rapid-fire action. They're also useful for depicting a rapid back-and-forth dialogue between two characters, especially if they're in different places. When I think of this particular layout, I imagine two fighter pilots saying things like, "He's right behind me!" and "Where are you?!?" into their helmet headset things, while they're being fired at.

Ahh, the full page layout. This is for something incredibly important. It's so important, the whole page is needed to convey it. It's like holding up a stop sign for your reader and saying, "You may have just skimmed a few of those littler panels before, but you don't want to miss this one." Often, there's no dialogue on a page like this, or maybe one tiny utterance (like "Whoa" or the end of an interrupted sentence, preceded by an ellipsis). You're meant to take in all the details in a full-page illustration, instead of being distracted by words. These tend to come immediately after a character enters a new setting: a sweeping landscape, the interior of a spaceship, a room that is bigger than you might have expected.

Meta-panels! I don't think that's the "correct" term for this layout, but it's how I think of it. You have a full-page illustration in the background, with smaller panels on top of it. These are mightily useful when you're switching settings often. You can show the setting in the full-page illustration, and the action or dialogue can happen in the foreground, without wasting space. I think of a battle raging in the background, while you can see individual soldiers in the foreground panels, with dialogue and emotions and all that good stuff.







There are, obviously, thousands if not millions of other ways to lay out a page. These are just a few examples that I've seen time and time again. Look for these and others next time you pick up a graphic novel.

Imagery

Imagery is a literary device used to help the audience see what the author sees. I'm talking about it today because so much of this week's review book, Perfume, relies on author Patrick Suskind's ability to describe sensory experiences.

Imagery can be accomplished in several ways. The easiest way is the adept use of adjectives. Adjectives are the words that modify nouns: green; loud; beautiful; salty; fluffy.

Pretend you're writing a scene set in the desert valley pictured above. What kind of adjectives could you use to describe it? Dry, probably. Arid, even. Beautiful, if it's your kind of place. It's certainly very orange. Desolate and lonely come to mind. You could also describe the sky: bright, clear, open, large.

Another path to imagery is the use of figurative language, like similes and metaphors. A simile is a comparison using the words "like" or "as."

"Reading this blog is as awesome as winning the lottery."

"Cassy and Alex are like rock stars."

There are similes because two unlike things are being compared to make a point. Unfortunately, reading Review Me Twice is not very much like winning the lottery, other than the fact that they are both awesome. And despite what I may think while singing with the radio in my car, I am not a rock star, but I have some qualities in common with rock stars (or at least, I like to think I do).

Me and Cassy... but only figuratively.



Then you have metaphors. Those are like similes without the "like" or "as."

"Reading this book was a roller coaster."

The book didn't literally put me on a roller coaster, although how cool would it be if that were possible? This figuratively means that the book had a lot of ups and downs (either in tone, emotional response, or quality).

Not pictured: Reading.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but when you're working in the opposite direction, you have to try to use less than a thousand words to describe the picture in your head, and if you're really good, you can include how it smells, tastes, sounds, and feels at the same time.