Teen Writers Bloc

A few weeks ago, I smacked my laptop shut and said, “That’s it. I don’t want to write anymore. It’s too hard.”

I was fed up with the insurmountable task of putting words to a blank page. I had some concepts in mind, but after chalking them out, I pitied the fool that might have to read them.

And sadly, that fool was me.

I gave up trying to “create” and decided, instead, to polish another story — one I’d been keeping a safe distance from. I had been “building” on it for a year now, but every time I tried to plough through, I seemed to get stuck.

Perhaps I should have outlined it better. What is really going on here? Why have I cooked up this messy stew that I’m too afraid to sip on? I can’t see the path ahead. It’s too hard. Help! Help!

Or perhaps I was too attached. I couldn’t seem to chop evidently extraneous characters and scenes. Who should I keep? Who should I cut? Help! Help!

Once again, I smacked the laptop shut and gave up.

I told myself this would all be over soon, and that after the MFA, I’d never ever write ever again. I backspaced and deleted 40 pages of that tale. I dug a deep trench and buried myself in that cold, dank and dark space where there was no pressure to write. No need to create. No words or pages. Just space to imagine it perfectly in my head.

I told my classmates about how I was DONE with writing.

Dhonielle told me to get out of that hole.

Lenea gave it to me straight up and said, “You’re being fickle.”

They were both right.

A lot goes on in the mind of a writer. As Jess pointed out at our last peer group meeting, sometimes you can imagine a conversation that your characters are having and it occupies at least a whole page — in your head. But when you sit down and actually write that dialogue, it’s difficult to stretch it beyond a paragraph or two.

This semester, I discovered that, often the parts of my writing that I almost cut out or was too embarrassed to share were the ones I got most compliments for.

But for me, there is always fear. The fear of being judged. And the fear is a bad habit. One that can easily stop you from going farther with your writing. What are people going to think of me? Is this lame?

A writer once told me that he’d rather be walking down Sixth Avenue naked with the whole world staring at him than have people read his poetry. I concur.

As writers, we place too much of a burden on ourselves, trying to sift through our billions of thoughts and stringing them into sentences and paragraphs to make the text perfect. And when we reread our work and share it with others, it is as if our writing is the metaphorical dead frog about to be dissected.

More so for everyone at Teen Writers Bloc, because we have a few weeks in hand to write that masterpiece of a thesis.

So for now, the one bad habit I’d like to “cleanse” myself of is the fickle-minded one. The one that plagues me with fear. The one that makes me overthink it.

I am my own worst enemy. I must bid adieu to that scary, imagined audience. I will no longer allow you to run up my laptop-repair costs. I will write and rewrite and write some more, unafraid. And the text shall remain on the screen.

Speech Bubbles image courtesy http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Popularity: 11%

A few weeks ago, I found myself back at my old magazine stomping grounds, a sky rise in midtown Manhattan where millions are made (and perhaps lost) every day, where the pace can make your head spin, where an average day could run 14 hours. I had the opportunity to chat about a short stint, just three months. And as much as I’ve been satisfied with my life since I left that world, I had to admit, I missed it. I missed my colleagues (hi Ericka!) and the thrill of the scoop. I missed the satisfaction of seeing the finished product on the page and knowing people would be enjoying it. I also missed the steady paycheck, the health insurance, the movie screenings…

It was weird. More than five years ago, I decided to go freelance — and I still very clearly remember the reasons why. I wanted a saner schedule, more time for my family — and, perhaps most importantly, more time for my writing. But being in that building again, I kept kept imagining where I’d be if I’d never left. Perhaps an editor in the very department I’d be filling in for. The short-term gig seemed idyllic, actually. Regular hours, a decent paycheck, a pace I could easily manage and a topic I found entertaining. But between the start date and the schedule, I knew it would mean a summer of struggling to squeeze in any writing. To be sure, writing fiction is a scarier, less stable path (although many freelance journalists reading this would laugh at that statement). But it’s one I definitely want to pursue.

I’ve long lamented on this site my lack of ability to finish a book. And now, as we wrap up our final semester at The New School, I’m finally coming close. I’ve been making steady progress on my thesis project, and I’m also nearly done with a solid draft of the other work-in-progress. By this summer, if I really focus and take my work seriously — if I treat writing fiction like a job — I could have two finished books. But that’s a big if.

It’s really easy for me to say work gets in the way. Because it does, to a degree. As a wife and a mother in a two-income household, I need to carry my weight. And as far as work goes, my job is pretty fun. But the freelance life brings with it a feast or famine mentality, which makes it hard for me to say no. (And I know others who suffer from the same malady. Yes, I’m calling you out, Dhonielle!) But it’s not the only thing. There’s that kid I’ve got. I’m drowning in guilt over all the time she spends at daycare. So every minute I can spend with her, I will. And there’s my handsome, smartie pant husband, whom I sometimes miss even though I see him every day. Plus, I have great family and friends and classmates whom I enjoy and want to spend time with. All of this before I even start to ponder picking up a book or watching Days of Our Lives. 

Where does that leave writing time? Too frequently, at the bottom of the list. But I’ve decided to change that. Bringing myself to turn down that short-term gig was my first step in recommitting to moving writing to the top of the list. As my husband often reminds me, its now or never. I have this brilliant opportunity to really focus on something I’m passionate about in grad school. So few people get that opportunity (or have such supportive spouses and family members). I need to make the most of it. And it doesn’t have to have an expiry date. My commitment to writing doesn’t have to go poof like a pumpkin come our May 17th graduation. That day should only mark the beginning.

So with that in mind, my spring cleaning goal is to start prioritizing my writing. This week, I wrote nearly 20 new pages. I gave work a solid few hours, but spent the rest of my time focusing on writing. I’ve still got half a thesis to finish, and I want it to be a solid start to my novel. That means giving it the time it deserves. That means giving myself the time I deserve.

Photo courtesy marset544/Flickr

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Way back in the day, when I was just starting out as in journalism, I worked briefly with Aimee Agresti, who was then an editor at the since-shuttered but always fabulous Premiere magazine. So when I heard that Aimee was releasing her first novel, the hotly-anticiapated Illuminate, the first in a trilogy, I knew we had to nab her for a quick chat for TeenWritersBloc.com. Thankfully, she graciously agreed! Herewith, Aimee!

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became a writer? 

Hi there! Thanks for having me! Before Illuminate, I was a writer firmly entrenched in the world of facts, so the leap to fiction has been a great new adventure. I majored in journalism at Northwestern and spent years writing for entertainment magazines, which was just as fun as it sounds! Most recently I was a staff writer for Us Weekly, a fabulous place full of great people. But I always dreamed of writing novels. I grew up reading everything in sight so writing Illuminate and seeing it on the shelves now has all been such a thrill!

Can you give us a quick synopsis of  Illuminate? How did you come up with the concept for the book? 

Sure! Illuminate is about a teen angel who’s forced to battle a pack of gorgeous, soul-stealing devils and ends up falling in love with one of them. But, of course, there’s so much more to it than that! Illuminate is a wonderful stew of so many things I adore. The first germ of the idea came from my love of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I thought it would be fascinating to update it and kept thinking, What would you have given your soul for when you were in high school? Then I added a few twists, some angels and devils, and, most importantly, a strong heroine. I grew up on Nancy Drew mysteries and loved Nancy’s fearlessness and confidence. I wanted my protagonist to be a girl who didn’t necessarily start out so sure of herself, but who became a force to be reckoned with by the end.

The book is set in a hotel. How did you decide on that for the setting? And you’re writing about angels and devils — did you dig into the canon on this?

I went to college in Chicago and I always knew it would be the perfect place to set a mystery. I loved its wild history — Capone, prohibition, and all those amazing tunnels beneath the city. What better place to serve as a backdrop for all sorts of sinister goings-on?

To get access to those tunnels AND to give my characters a fun place to call home, I decided to resurrect the Lexington Hotel — which is no longer standing. I liked the glamour element that came with living in a hotel. Dorian Gray is full of beauty and luxury, he lives in a pretty posh pad, so I wanted the setting to be special. I did look at old pictures of the Lexington but, since it no longer exists, I gave myself carte blanche to modernize it and make all sorts of changes. Illuminate‘s Lexington is a newly renovated version. (Capone sure didn’t have a spa when he lived there!)

As for the angels and devils: I wanted my characters to be angels because I thought learning to fly was a great metaphor for growing up. Since these are my particular angels and devils, I created some new myths and legends and history for them. I’m hoping readers come to the book ready to watch a whole new world unfold!

If I’m not mistaken, Illuminate is the first in a series. Can you talk about the challenges of planning ahead for books two, three, and so on?

I always envisioned Illuminate as the beginning of a trilogy. There are three tests these characters need to complete to earn their wings, so each book represents one of those tests. I’ve, of course, never written a series before, so I have a whole new appreciation now for all those authors who have done it so well!

There’s a lot of planning involved. I always need to map everything out, that’s just how I roll, I tend to outline like crazy before I start writing. But even so, there are certain little bits that I had planned for Book Two that went into Illuminate. And now, as I’m working on Book Two, there are certain bits that I was saving for Book Three that I can’t resist using now. Even with so much planning, you still have to let a book lead you sometimes!

What’s your writing process? What does a typical writing day look like? 

Good questions! When I’m in Total Writing Mode, I have to admit, I become a little anti-social! I tend to stay tucked away in my apartment pretty much chained to my laptop from morning until mid-afternoon and I try to stay off of email, too. At some point, to prevent from becoming a complete recluse, I’ll emerge for a coffee break. And when I need a change of scenery, I’ll head to a museum to write. I live in DC, surrounded by the Smithsonians, and I absolutely love to write in the courtyard of the Portrait Gallery.

I tend to stop working in the late afternoon/early evening, but if it’s going especially well then I’ll pick things back up again at night, which can be the most wonderful, peaceful time to write.

Of course, this is my schedule in theory. It doesn’t always go so smoothly! I’ve had to amend it a little bit while working on the sequel to Illuminate because I had a baby boy a few months ago! He calls the shots!

What has your path to publication been like? What’s been the most surprising part of the process for you? 

The most surprising part of the process has probably been how well-cared for I’ve been. My editor is absolutely fantastic and I’ve learned so much from her. My agent is actually a friend of mine and she’s been so wonderful guiding me through every step of the way. And the whole team at HMH has been tremendous — from the fabulous cover designer to the publicist, who has been such a true champion of the book. I’m a lucky girl!

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever gotten? What advice would you yourself give aspiring authors?

Write, write, write! The great thing about writing is that the more you do it, the better you get. I wrote so many unpublished stories before this, but I know that all of that work made me better. And I like to think that every time I sit down at my laptop, I continue to get better.

What was your favorite book when you were a teenager? What are you reading now?

The Catcher in the Rye was my all-time favorite as a teen and it still is. I still reread it all the time, I love Holden Caulfield! But I had so many favorites as a kid: Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, the entire Nancy Drew series, Roald Dahl’s The Witches, so many!

Right now, I have a towering to-be-read pile and I’m always hopelessly behind. I just took a tiny break from YA to finally, finally, finally read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. (I know, so late, forgive me!) And now I’m back to YA and just started The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg. A girl who dies of a broken heart?! Such a brilliant premise.

What’s next for you writing-wise (and otherwise!)?

I’m working on the sequel to Illuminate right now. It should be out next year! You can keep tabs on it at aimeeagresti.com!

Do you believe in being part of a “bloc” of writers? Are critique groups and writing communities helpful to you?

I love writers supporting each other in any way or form — whether it’s championing each other’s work in the blogosphere or whether it’s actually taking a critical look at something before it’s a finished product. For me, I find it comforting to connect with folks who are sharing an experience, and, though it isn’t any formal group, I’ve been lucky to have a few individual writers I go to to compare notes on navigating the world of publishing and to talk about our work. We tend to share our writing before it’s out in the world, but after we’ve done a good amount of revising and feel it’s in pretty good shape.

When it comes to getting real, solid constructive criticism on early drafts, I turn to my trusted first reader: my sister, Karen! She’s extremely well-read, has a sharp eye, and is honest. She’ll tell me if certain things aren’t working. She’ll pinpoint what I need more or less of. She asks great questions and gives me the kinds of notes I need to hear. I listen to her, and I’m always glad that I do! Our deal is that she reads a draft, prepares her notes and then I take her out to dinner and we talk about it all. It’s a good time!

Thanks Aimee, for taking the time to chat with us! We’re so excited to check out the series! 

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Dear Every Writing Professor I’ve Ever Had,

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for all of those times that I wasn’t the model student. Remember when you assigned five page essays and a convenient deathly illness would strike me the day that they were due and you would get an e-mail from me apologizing profusely about how I wish with all of my heart and soul that I could’ve been well enough to come to class because I loved the class and you and this five page paper that I conveniently forgot to attach?

Yeah, I apologize for essentially calling you a fool with the above excuses for not being in class and turning in my paper on time. Now that I’m on the other side of the teacher’s desk, I know how you felt. Had I actually been sick (and prepared), I would’ve e-mailed you my paper well before the paper was actually due, not a day or two later.

I now know how excuses feel.

I remember when you all would joke about how you knew all of our “tricks” for getting out of class and for handing in assignments late. But I scoffed at this. I thought, “How could you know that I was out drinking all weekend and I simply didn’t want to write your essay?” I was 100% certain that my excuse that I was throwing up all day with a 105 fever and green spots all over my body was legitimate enough for you to buy into. My favorite excuse was, “I really loved this assignment and the idea behind it, but I just couldn’t figure what to say because I wanted to just get it right. Can I get an extension until tomorrow?” I thought I could undermine your intelligence and appeal to you with a flattering comment about how intelligent your essay assignment was. But I never thought, “How will one extra day suddenly spark the necessary inspiration needed to complete this assignment correctly?”

I also never thought about your feelings. And for that, I am sorry.

I never realized that my presence in your class was, in fact, appreciated…even if I didn’t say anything in participation that particular day. I know now that, if one of my students is absent, I feel like I’m not doing something right, or that I won’t have enough of a discussion to adequately teach. I never knew this before.

I also know how you felt when, had I been absent because I simply didn’t feel like doing an essay, I missed receiving new homework and essay assignments and you’d wait for me to contact you because that’s my job as a student. I cursed you for not contacting me and telling me what I missed…now I know that it wasn’t your job. I probably shouldn’t have called you all those nasty names. I know you didn’t know about that, but now you do, so now I’m even sorrier.

Thank you for dealing with my shit all of those years. Seriously.

You rock so hard,

Steven

Cartoon courtesy of Saturday Cartoons by Mark Stivers

Popularity: 16%

#DidYouKnow that we live in a world of technology? Everyone has a cell phone – now-a-days the iPhone is like the common cold: everywhere and hard to shake – and with the surge in applications like Twitter and Facebook comes the death of #grammar.

I’ve noticed this when I’m editing papers. When did it become acceptable to write “n” instead of “and,” or “cuz” instead of “because”? When did the use of the semi-colon become so widespread it’s like the plague of essay writing?

It’s commonly referred to as Text Language, as if improper spelling and grammar deserves its own proper name. What used to only be commonplace in instant messaging (you know, back when AIM was an actual form of communication) is now creeping into academic essays and worse – young adult fiction.

Maybe it’s a believability issue, but I think writing in Text Language in a YA book is not an artistic move; it’s just perpetuating the idea that all teens write grammatically incorrect sentences when they text their friends, or update their statuses (or worse, when teens IM each other in books – since IMing is so popular #insertsarcasmhere). Take, for example, my 17-year-old sister, who is a frequent contributor to my Facebook Newsfeed. I’ve had conversations with her multiple times over the last few years where she has expressed her disgust when her friends (or people she knows) text her grammatically incorrect text messages. In her words, “How %@$^&#$*& hard is it to type a complete sentence with punctuation?!”

I just think that those who write young adult novels and employ Text Language are just encouraging today’s youth to continue writing (and text messaging) in grammatically incorrect sentences. If not, I fear the apocalypse. Trees will shrivel up like old, dried-up broccoli. Volcanoes will spew out venom-squirting raccoons that will take up residence in our garbage cans and eat us when we throw out the trash. Stars will collide (and not in the romantic way that songs inaccurately depict – I’m talking Bruce Willis in Armageddon or Tea Leoni in the oft-forgot about Deep Impact). Britney Spears might even cease to exist altogether.

So this is a call to all YA writers: #GrammarSavesLives

Cartoon courtesy of Chris Madden

Popularity: 21%

Shaw. Professor Shaw.

That’s my new title. Okay, well technically my title is Assistant Professor Shaw, but Professor sounds so much cooler. I can finally thank The New School for that master’s degree — that $40k piece of paper that hangs on my freshly painted bedroom walls. It feels good.

I’ve known for many years now that I wanted to teach. That’s half of the reason I decided to go to The New School (the other half was to improve my writing so that I could get an agent and get published. Ahem … Earth to agents. This is for you. Ahem!), so it’s nice to know that I am finally teaching.

Where: The College of New Rochelle.

What: Writing 102: Critical Research Essay

When: Why am I telling you this? So you show up and slaughter me on my way to class?

It’s a required freshman writing course geared towards showing students how to write a well-developed research paper.

Typically, the thought of writing is one that makes students want to scream. So you could imagine what writing a research paper must do to them. That’s why I’ve decided to take a mass media/pop culture spin on the proceedings.

What do Facebook, Britney Spears, Suzanne Collins, South Park, Saved by the Bell, Modern Family, People Magazine, The New York Times, Drake, Lady Gaga and Beyonce, Don Henley, Chuck Klosterman, Dove, United Colours of Benetton, and many, many more pop culture references have in common?

They’re all a part of my class.

Example: On the second day of class, we listened to a few songs about fame and media influence, like Drake’s “Headlines” and Lady Gaga’s “The Fame.” My first essay assignment had my students compare Britney Spears’s “Piece of Me” to Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” and discuss what each says about the media’s influence. I’m also having them read Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games because of what it says about our reality TV-obsessed culture. (Does anyone think Hunger Games is basically one giant commentary on Britney’s head-shaving, paparazzi-umbrella-attacking breakdown?)

Not your typical run-of-the-mill writing course, eh?

Exactly.

It’s weird being on the other side of the red pen. But it’s natural. I come alive during class time, and I live to create assignments. My goal is to foster a fun learning environment that provokes discussions that ignites my students’ creativity, hopefully gives them ideas for their writing, and helps them dive deeper into their own thoughts. Last week, I had them read a study on online gender-swapping. Then I had them use Facebook to study a member of the opposite sex and write a few paragraphs on gender construction.

I’m employing everything I’ve learned in my career as a writing student (and that of a writing tutor) to kick ass as Professor Shaw.

We’re entering the fourth week of classes, and so far I have a wonderful group of students who really seem to respond to the material. We have our first writing workshop on Monday.

Stay tuned for more stories and lessons from The Other Side of the Red Pen as they develop!

Photo Credit: The Daily News and New York Post

Popularity: 20%

As writers, we are lovers of words. Learning new words, rediscovering old words, choosing the perfect words to come out of our characters’ mouths. But I now know five words that, when put in a very specific sequence, are better than any other words in the whole wide world: I GOT A BOOK DEAL!

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I don’t like celebrating myself. I’ve never been one for birthday parties and I didn’t even have a wedding – I talked my husband into getting married at City Hall. (It costs 25 bucks and takes about 30 seconds. Plus, you can wear jeans!) But selling my book, getting this deal… well, I kinda want to shout it from the rooftops.

My debut novel, On the Plus Side, a contemporary YA about a suburban teenage girl who tests positive for HIV, will be published by Sourcebooks Fire in Spring 2013. And it’s part of a 2-book deal (!!!), so my currently-untitled follow-up contemporary YA novel will be hitting bookstores the following October!

It’s a very weird thing, going from being a writing student with an abstract dream of selling a book to suddenly working with a real live editor and coming up with cover ideas and back cover synopses and author bios and all that stuff that will be part of an actual, physical book. A book that I wrote. I mean, holy crap, right? Crazy.

So crazy, in fact, that I’m almost afraid it will all go away. Like there was some big mistake made or the publishing company will change their minds or it’s all part of some elaborate joke. You see that picture? That’s the letter from Larry Kramer, the playwright of The Normal Heart, that was given out to all audience members at the Broadway production of the play last year. I taped it to my wall above my computer so whenever I needed inspiration while writing On the Plus Side, Larry’s amazing words were there to give me an encouraging nudge.

I put the “Happy Thoughts” note up on the day my awesome agent Kate McKean sent the book out to editors. (Feb. 28 was the close date – yeah, this whole thing happened really quickly.) Whenever I managed to convince myself that no one would want to buy the book and that I am a talentless, wannabe hack (which was often), I would look up at that note and think happy thoughts and it would make me feel better. The thing is, I’m now afraid to take them off my wall. What if by doing so, I displace some tiny, teetering part of the universe and the whole thing comes crashing down around me?

Those notes will probably stay taped to that wall until I move out of this apartment and am forced to take them down. But that’s okay. They’re a welcome reminder that this whole business might be totally crazy, but it’s also totally wonderful.

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While I was growing up, most of the characters in the books I had read were portrayed as white. In fact, the only book I can recall having an ethnic main character was Cassie Logan, a nine-year-old African American girl, from Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I wouldn’t have even known about this book if it hadn’t been assigned in the seventh grade. Not only was I fascinated by how the main character was not white, but that she was also strong. I was impressed.

I was in high school the first time I saw a book written by an Asian author. When I saw The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan on the library shelf, I picked it up only because I recognized that her name was Chinese. As soon as I saw her photograph on the back cover, I checked the book out, not even bothering to find out what the story was about. I felt the ethnic connection to Amy Tan’s characters from the very first page. Later on, I began seeing more and more books with Asian narrators on the shelves. I read everything I could find.

Even though I read all the books I could find that had Asian narrators, I never thought about making my own main character anything but white. When my classmates encouraged me to try writing a story with an Asian character, I felt like I was being pushed into an area where I wasn’t comfortable, so I resisted. At first, I thought it was because I spent so much of my life in America and I just didn’t feel I knew my own culture well enough to write about it.

But then I began to re-read some of the books I had discovered during my younger years and I noticed that the all Asian narrators appeared to have similar characteristics. They had non-Asian friends and they were disconnected from their culture. They tried to hide from their friends how “weird” their families were for practicing Asian traditions. Apparently, Asian authors aren’t comfortable making their characters truly Asian. I guess I shouldn’t worry about not being able to write about an Asian narrator.

I’m trying to change. Although the main character in my most recent story is not fully Asian, it is part of her background. Her grandmother is Korean and she is closely connected to her culture. I’m not ready to make my narrator 100% Asian, but I’m hoping I can make that happen in one of my future books.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Popularity: 13%

A few years ago, when my sister Meena and I first started writing screenplays, we pondered this: do we make our protagonist a brown girl like us? Or a white girl like most of the members of some vague future audience for our films?

At first, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Did we want to actually sell a script? Why yes, we did. So we wrote about a white girl. Relatable. Fun. And still, deep down, a bit like us. Did she not suffer from frizzy, uncontrollable hair? Did she not have a bitchy boss from hell who made her life miserable? Did she not lust after the exact wrong guy? See?

But we weren’t satisfied with just that. So we made sure we put a brown character into the script, albeit in a small role. Then a funny thing happened when we were taking pitch meetings in big, bad Hollywood. When they inevitably asked what else we were working on (they always ask that, by the way), we told them about this little project I’d been developing for my thesis script at NYU, you know, the back pocket one that you’ll eventually have to make yourself because it’s so specific. It was about another floundering twenty-something (our specialty!) in the city who fell for the wrong guy, had the bitchy boss, and was essentially just a hot mess.

But this feisty chick — well, she was brown. Like us. There was something about her, though, that made her relatable to all those aforementioned potential white girls in that imaginary audience. And so that ended up being the script that everyone wanted to talk about, that everyone wanted to work with us on. It didn’t hurt, also, that Bend It Like Beckham was a surprise hit, and Monsoon Wedding had done well right before that. But of course, by the time we’d worked out all the kinks with our would-be producers, another flick with subcontinental flavor had TANKED, and so we lost our shot.

Writing fiction has been an interesting journey for me in this regard, especially when compared to the previously ethnically barren landscape of Hollywood. (Now, there’s a requisite brown sidekick on every hit sitcom or drama. I’m not kidding. I could make a whole slideshow full. Maybe I will, in fact.) (Anyway, I digress.) Given the healthy interest in South Asian Diaspora fiction the past decade, I didn’t feel nearly as intimidated writing an ethnic character as I had in the past. There’s room in publishing for brown folks like me, at least to a certain degree — and in a certain market. (Mostly literary fiction.) But! And you knew there was a but!

There are still some stories that I want to write that don’t really have anything at all to do with being a brown girl. Case in point? My first YA project, which is about as high concept as they come. If I made one of the two protagonists an Indian girl, it would leave readers scratching their heads. Why did the author make that choice? What does it bring to the text? In that novel, it really wouldn’t bring a whole lot to the text. But, as always, I want to represent. So I did put an Indian girl into the book — in a bit of an unexpected way. And there’s a black character in it, too, but not just to make it uber-diverse. It’s in a way that makes sense for the story and the character. The book isn’t about race, really. But the diversity adds a layer to the text. It works in the novel without overtaking the novel.

My second work-in-progress — my thesis project — is a whole ‘nother story. Ethnic identity is one of the key components in this book. It has a flavor to it, if you will. One of the biggest challenges I’m facing in working on my thesis project is that I’m writing three narrators — and they’re all brown girls, all from New Jersey, all Upper Middle class. All too easily, these three voices could meld together and sound the same, given their shared history and ethnicity, their shared community. But you see, that’s where the other components of storytelling come into play here. These are three very different characters — each has a different want, a different way of achieving it or expressing it, a different take on the world. Or at least I hope they will. The key for me in telling this story is to not just make them three brown girls. It’s the universality of the situations they face — the heart of the novel is about the implosion of a friendship, something that’s relatable to most readers. The setting and culture is specific — and therefore, I’m hoping, interesting in its own right — but the conflict is universal, graspable by a wider audience. Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not just writing a book about brown girls for brown girls, but rather a book about these girls, who happen to be brown, but they’re also very much just…girls.

That’s kind of how I view writing ethnicity. Do I always write what I know? Not exactly. But there’s usually some intrinsic part of the character that I can relate to, something that makes the character universal in some way. The angst of the character, their hovering mother, their bond with a sibling, the way they tie their shoes or hate their job or eat breakfast for dinner. My characters tend to be human, after all. (No sci-fi here.) With all my writing, it seems, I’m trying to tell an everygirl story in a specific and interesting way. Kind of like with that script that was a hot property for ten Hollywood seconds.

And that script, by the way? The story’s still in my back pocket. Maybe you’ll read it one day — in novel form.

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My stance on writing race and ethnicity has always been the same. If cultural elements and racial identity are important to the story you’re telling and the character at the heart of your piece, you should make those things apparent in your work. However, if you’re not writing a story specifically about a Black/Hispanic/Asian/White/Arab/Indian/etc. individual and how s/he experiences life, and instead you’re writing a story about family/love/friendship/loss or whatever with a protagonist that just happens to be of a certain race, I don’t think that such information needs to be heavily focused on in the text.

It’s true that if it’s not spelled out for the reader, most people will assume that a narrator is white, because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to see as the norm. And it’s true that some distinguishing characteristics about a character’s appearance should be included for readers so that they can have a fuller picture of who that character is. Naturally, readers bring their own preconceived notions taken from their personal experiences and apply them to whatever text they’re reading, helping them to relate to a character or situation. But with that said, what pushes me to keep reading a novel is not a character’s race necessarily, but his or her voice, motivation, personality, point of view, and most importantly, his or her personal journey or struggle. In my opinion, if those are clear and specific in a narrative, the appearance of a character is almost irrelevant with regard to level of importance.

Now, this belief of mine has garnered some criticism during workshops because I don’t always describe a character’s appearance in the first chapter. I may say brown hair or brown eyes, but I don’t make it glaringly obvious that it’s a person of color until the third paragraph in chapter two. Sometimes I wonder why this is an issue. When I read a book about a white protagonist there doesn’t always seem to be a need to discuss cultural or racial particularities. If my story is mainly about a girl struggling with her parents’ divorce, does it matter what race she is necessarily? So much so that it must be clarified on the first page? But then I think about when I was a teenager and I wanted to read about someone who looked like me going through the same ‘normal’ things that other teens in YA novels went through. That reminds me that the distinction does matter, and always will, to an extent.

Many of my favorite books, like Danzy Senna’s Caucasia, are written by black or mixed authors about black protagonists, and I do admit that I seek out such works so that I can try to find a character who understands some aspect of my experience. Many people do this, I feel, especially since a character’s identity is often important to a story. Yet, a fair amount of my favorite books are also written by authors of other races about white protagonists or protagonists of other ethnic origins, like with Jenny Han’s novel, The Summer I Turned Pretty. Do I relate any less to those characters? Not really. Their experiences and viewpoints, spelled out richly on the page, cause me to yearn to know what will happen to them on their journeys as well.

Still, regardless of what race a protagonist is, sometimes when reading I don’t relate at all to an emotion or feeling or incident that the character experiences. For instance, I can read a book about a black girl and not be able to fully relate to that character because of our different backgrounds and struggles. Every person, no matter what ethnicity or race, is unique in experience and thought. A character’s differing decisions and outlooks and a reader’s ability to understand and/or be intrigued by them account for a novel’s strength in some regard.

Overall, I believe that writing race is difficult. Will what you write affect people’s perception of your people as a whole? Or is it just a part of that particular character’s experience? Will people read your work as widely if you focus on a character considered to be an ‘other’ in society? Will you be pigeon-holed into only writing about a certain type of person? These are all questions that a writer might consider before beginning a story. But a better question is perhaps this: what is necessary for you to include in order for you to tell the story you want to tell in the best way possible? It’s a question that only you can answer. For YA readers in particular, finding a character that speaks to them and their personal struggle is crucial. But the way such characters are written depends on authors and their conscious and deliberate decisions about how to best tell the stories they were meant to tell.

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