Blog readers have asked me several times about publication possibilities for teens, and yesterday I spent a few hours with HarperCollins people who told me about an interesting opportunity. Some of you may know about it already, but for those who don’t, it’s Inkpop (inkpop.com), where you can post your writing for peer review (review by other Inkpoppers). The five highest ranked pieces are looked at by HarperCollins editors, and publication is possible. I just visited the site, and there’s also a contest that looks promising. If you try the site, please let me know how it goes. And good luck!

Also, the HarperCollins folks confirmed what I’ve said and others on the blog have said, particularly April, that editors don’t care how old you are if your writing shines.

I’ve muddied the waters about foreshadowing, which seems to be a broader term than I thought. Dictionary.com defines foreshadow as “to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure” – totally nonspecific. I googled the word and was forced to conclude that any sort of hint to the reader regarding future events is foreshadowing. A hint could be in the setting, like, of course, a haunted house. Or in dialogue. I got this from Wikipedia: “In Romeo and Juliet, both main characters state early on that they would rather defy their families and be in love than live apart.” Apparently that’s an example of foreshadowing.

Wikipedia also includes omens and prophesies as forms of foreshadowing. It refers to the classic instance of the Greek myth of Oedipus, whose father is told by the Delphic oracle that his son will kill him. We read the myth never doubting that the oracle will be proven right no matter what Laius (the father) does to save himself. I don’t think foreknowledge spoils the story, and Laius’s demise comes in the middle not the end. After that we’re waiting for Oedipus to discover his crime, committed casually, in ignorance, because the oracle didn’t speak to him. The inevitability of the tragedy adds to its weight.

Foreshadowing in this broader definition is quite inclusive, and I’m getting confused. I suppose one could call character development foreshadowing. As we readers get to know a character the field of possible actions for him narrows. For example, we learn that Jim never lies. When a situation arises where lying would spare him a ton of trouble, we worry. We’ve been warned. Does the author think, I’m foreshadowing,  when she establishes Jim’s personality? Darned if I know.

Here’s a funny article about foreshadowing: http://www.theonion.com/articles/now-that-ive-learned-about-foreshadowing-im-going,11392/. It covers all the bases and shows how hackneyed foreshadowing can be when handled clumsily or as it’s been used a billion times before by other writers.

On Wikipedia I came across Chekhov’s gun as an example of foreshadowing, and I’d never thought of it this way before. Paraphrasing, the idea is that if a gun is shown in the first act of a play, it has to go off in the last act. When the audience sees that gun, it’s put on notice.

I’d always thought the meaning of Chekhov’s gun had to do with economy not foreshadowing, with not cluttering up a story. If we put a gun in we have to do something with it or we wasted words. On the other hand, clutter can misdirect a reader delightfully. And what if the gun is part of a weapon’s display? Or a key to a character rather than to the story’s crisis?

Storytelling is complicated. My husband and I watch a TV mystery series called Bones. One of the characters is pregnant, and in the show both she and her husband have a recessive gene that causes blindness, so there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the baby will be blind. The latest episode we watched involved a deaf-mute girl, and I’ve been wondering if this is foreshadowing that means the baby will be blind, or if the viewer is just meant to fret more. I’m fine either way. If it’s foreshadowing it’s subtle–

Which I recommend. It’s the heavy-handed kind I described in the last post that I’m not fond of, except in the instances I mentioned.

Now for this week’s question. On March 3, 2011, Elizabeth wrote,   At some point would you be able to address the question of “Why do we read” and the (very hard) issue of balancing your reading with both fiction and non-fiction?

I asked for clarification and Elizabeth wrote, Last semester my husband taught a literature course, and he opened the semester with the question, “Why do we read?”

    There is no one right answer, and it can be summed up that we read to expand our intellect and imagination. Which leads to the next question I asked about: Limiting yourself (the reader) to only one type of material.

    I know that young people do this a lot and I’m finding as I get older that it’s not something that’s solved just by passing your 21st (and I don’t anticipate 30 to be magical either) birthday. I ask, Ms. Levine, because I hope that you can help encourage me (there I said it) and others like me, to be better.
Oy! I am not a reading paragon, and I’m not much of a reader at all these days. As a young person I was much better. One summer in high school I decided to read Russian novels, and I did. I decided to try Faulkner and loved the book I picked.

In those days I zoomed through books. I would have sworn off eating before I’d have sworn off reading, if I’d been forced to give up either one. And I used to fantasize about having to make that kind of choice!

Nowadays I read like a writer, which means I edit as I read. If I find myself editing a sentence in every paragraph, I abandon the book because there’s no pleasure in it. I just read Victory, a middle-grade historical fiction novel by Susan Cooper. The writing is lovely, so I was able to lose myself in it. Before that I tried a mystery but the author used the word slightly so often I gave up. Each slightly grated on me more than the one before. Why couldn’t the author commit the characters completely to an action?

I have nothing against pleasure reading and escape reading. I’ve mentioned before that I adore Terry Pratchett. When I’m reading one of his books I’m wallowing in delight. I haven’t zipped through his entire body of work only because I’m not reading much.

Every summer I teach the writing-for-children workshop at a conference in Pennsylvania, and there’s always a reading list that gets me out of my comfort zone. I read two novels for adults and a middle-grade nonfiction book that I never would have come across otherwise and that I loved. The novels were The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean and You’re Not You by Michelle Wildgen. The nonfiction was Shipwrecked at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong. I’ve struggled through several other books on the lists, too. I even attempted to read a nonfiction tome about chaos theory that was a mile or more above my math skills. I gave up when the only words I understood were the articles and prepositions! Still, the effort expended on all these books was worthwhile; I strengthened my reading muscles, and I believe my writing muscles benefited too.

If you’re still in school, books are being assigned to you. I think this is good even when it feels bad. If you’re out of school, ask a librarian or bookseller for suggestions. Tell him you want to explore new reading worlds – mysteries, historical fiction, sci fi, literary fiction, history, economics, memoir, science. Maybe you write only fantasy and that’s all you ever want to write, but it’s probably best to read other genres. Sticking to yours may narrow your concept of what’s possible and may make you too imitative. I’ll avoid reading a novel based on a fairy tale I might want to use someday because the other writer’s take would lodge in my mind. A contemporary fiction book, on the other hand, may give me a great, utterly original fantasy idea.

I hesitate to say this, but if you’re glued to a single genre you may be reading junk sometimes. The story may be exciting but the writing uninspired. And you may become inured to this kind of prose; you may lose or never gain the ability to tell the mediocre from the magnificent. Sorry! However, if you push yourself, you’re likely to encounter writing that will stun you with its beauty, elegance, risk-taking, surprise.  Think about style as you read. Consider what’s a good sentence and what’s less pleasing. The effort will show in your own work. Anyway, that’s what I believe.

Not that you should try to write like Fitzgerald or anybody else. Or torment yourself because your sentences aren’t as shapely as, say, Gregory McDonald’s. Let the process be unconscious. Let the language seep into you, slosh around in your gray matter, and descend, slowly, slowly, into your writing fingers.

Prompts:

∙    Consider yourself. Write a list of your qualities, physical, emotional, intellectual. Don’t be hard on yourself, just objective so that the next step will work. Now design a character who is your opposite. Changing gender is optional, but if you have a strong chin, give your character a weak one. If you are calm, make her excitable. Think about a challenge one of your friends is facing right now. If it’s not a difficult challenge, make it harder and throw your opposite into dealing with it. Write a story about what happens. You can always move the problem into the realm of fantasy. If your friend, for example, has a difficult stepfather, you can turn him into an evil magician guardian.

∙    If you never have, read a book by Mark Twain, one of my absolute favorite writers. If you’re in high school and above, read a novel by Anne Tyler, another of my faves. Ask your librarian to recommend a book that he thinks is beautifully written. Read it.

∙    This is, I believe, an impossible prompt, so the idea is to push against the impossible. Write a story about a child (any age) who is lost in a city, fantasy or real, past or present. Attempt to write about him without doing any sort of foreshadowing. Try to make the reader surprised at every turn.

Have fun, and save what you write!