Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Way of Writing--yet another model

[shalanna]

I've been typing about some different authors' methods of starting novels lately. If you'd like to read about how Zilpha Keatley Snyder, author of the great "tweens" book The Egypt Game, does it, here's where to go. Her site also has an autobiography and some ways to get your hands on her books.

Comments

[ladyjaguar.livejournal.com]

Oy! You should see how David Poyer (Down to a Sunless Sea, The Only Thing to Fear, among others) plans out his books. He's a Naval Academy grad, and I think an engineer by education. He did a talk at the North Florida Writer's Festival once, showing how he does it. He filled the blackboards with flow charts and all sorts of other arcana. He's very thorough and meticulous in it all.

The only thing I've read of Snyder's is the three Greensky books, and I enjoyed them. And we had the "Below the Root" computer game. Probably still have it around here somewhere, though I doubt we can play it anymore because it was a DOS-based game. It was fun, though. The girls enjoyed it, and Keys and I liked playing it, too.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

David Poyer was really nice to me when he judged that Jacksonvile-area writers' festival manuscript contest. (The one where the sea turtles are; professor Howard Somebody--I am a rat not to remember--heads it up at the community college.) I think you probably are the one who told me about it. (They allow contest entries from people who can't come to the conference.) In that contest, back in 1991 or thereabouts, I came in second . . . and got back a detailed comment sheet from him. He basically said the waitress novel (the Southern gothic) was going strong until I had the chapter-length reverie, which interrupted the flow of the book and got it off track. Up until then, he was actually reading it and giving a few line-edit level pointers. I was really surprised, because if there's a chick novel, that's it . . . and he writes technothrillers and guy things. I had gone into the chapter-length reverie because I felt things had been moving too fast, but after taking it out, I could see where to apply a bit of "sequel" here and there. Unfortunately, it was too late for that contest and whichever editor they had hanging off the stick as their carrot. ;) I was struck by how nice it was for a best-selling author to take that much time with a contest entry. Lots and lots of them just don't know how to critique, too.

I think _Egypt Game_ is Snyder's best. But then I discovered the book at exactly the right age. I was in fifth grade and reading through the Newbery novel shelf. It makes you want to go out and have an Egypt game of your own. But there's also a good storyline . . . there's a Boo Radley-like character who helps the main character get rescued when she does something rash at the end of the book. I recently took a look at the copy I found at Half Price Books (my original was lost in Mother's house fire, if she hadn't already purged it) and noticed that it is in an omniscient viewpoint. Now you don't see that too often, because intimate close-in viewpoint of the main character is "in style." (And it turns out that I do best in that viewpoint, so that's a lucky break.) But if anyone ever wants to see how to do omniscient without having authorial intrusion, it'd be good for them to take a look at _Egypt Game_.

There are a bunch of bogus reviews of that book on Amazon. It made me mad. They're from a disgruntled class of ignorami who were made to read the book and told they'd get extra credit if they posted reviews. I've already complained to Amazon about the one that says "this book has too much content for its own good" (I deleted the apostrophe that the idiot put in "its"), but they came back saying it would be "censorship" to remove vapid, bogus, obviously-didn't-read-it stuff. Feh! Censorship, nothin'. They're just lazy.

[ladyjaguar.livejournal.com]

David is amazing in his willingness to help an aspiring writer. He's been probably THE moving force behind the writer's festival here. The other moving force is Howard Denson (the surname you couldn't remember). But David is as nice a big-time pro writer you could ever hope to meet.

I don't worry too much about the Amazon reviews. Booking Hawaii Five-0 got generally good ones except for one from a guy who was disappointed that it wasn't a personality piece with interviews with the stars. I took the time to explain to him that I consciously selected and "arm's-length" historical view rather than the personality-fluff route. He also referred to the book as "nothing more than a glorified episode guide." I pretty much explained that yes, it is an episode guide -- that's why the subtitle is "An Episode Guide and Critical History." And I was happy he had called it "glorified." (grin)

Yes, THAT Edd Vick

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Shalanna:

You posted a comment on my wife's LJ. Yep, I'm the same me I was back at SMU. Email me at edd@speakeasy.net to catch up, if you'd like.

And I'm lovin' your blog! To reply downtopic, I love the Dortmunder books. It's fine to have a baddie as the protagonist, so long as they've got something admirable, even tenaciousness (viz all those horror movies).

-Edd