When Fiction Becomes Reality?

People are always doing new studies and looking at things in a different way. It’s fantastic. It helpsus grow and change. Wouldn’t it be cool if someone did a study on the effectsof reading fiction? How the brain processes the information and what happensafter the story is over? Well, someone finally did. 

The basic premise isthat when the reader can fully lose himself in the book’s main character, hefeels as though he’s experienced everything that character has experienced. Notin the same way that a vivid imagination can guess what the experience mighthave been like, but actually feeling like he’s gone through the experience. It’scalled ‘experience-taking.’

“Experience-taking changes us by allowing us to merge our own liveswith those of the characters we read about, which can lead to good outcomes,”said Geoff Kaufman, who led the study as a graduate student at Ohio State. Heis now a postdoctoral researcher at the Tiltfactor Laboratory at DartmouthCollege.

Interesting, huh? Andwhat an experience for readers! And how amazing that we writers can give thisto them!

The next question, ofcourse, is how do we do this? Well, we have to build complex, realistic characters that trickthe reader into believing they are real people. They need quirks, opinions, biases,body language, flaws, everything. When those attributes exist, readers will beable to identify with one or more of them, and then they’re off—stealingexperiences from our characters. :) Who knew great writing could be sopowerful?

The key to creating stronglinks to main characters is how and when to reveal certain details aboutlifestyle, quirks, opinions, etc. It’s all about the timing of the delivery. One of the studies in the article illustrates this.

In one experiment, 70 male, heterosexual college students read a storyabout a day in the life of another student. There were three versions - one inwhich the character was revealed to be gay early in the story, one in which thestudent was identified as gay late in the story, and one in which the characterwas heterosexual.Results showed that the students who read the story where the characterwas identified as gay late in the narrative reported higher levels ofexperience-taking than did those who read the story where the character’shomosexuality was announced early.

In other words, if thecharacters are established as real people first, with traits that the readercan identify with, then it won’t matter how many differences they have down theroad. That connection has already been made, and the reader can go with it. Howcool is this?? Seriously, my inner geek is really excited.

This just reinforcesthe importance of character, and how we need to make them so real that theyfeel like actual, physical people that a reader can lose himself in.

What do you think of all this?

June Book Giveaway!

Another month, and I've got four ARCs to give away. Here they are:

Prize Pack #1

ARC of Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn’t mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It’s up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!
On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

ARC of A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan
Farrah "Digit" Higgins may be going to MIT in the fall, but this L.A. high school genius has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping-- all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously. So much for blending in...


Prize Pack #2

ARC of Enchanted by Alethea Kontis
It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.
When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.
The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?

ARC of Smart Girls Get What They Want by Sarah Strohmeyer
Gigi, Bea, and Neerja are best friends and total overachievers. Even if they aren’t the most popular girls in school, they aren’t too worried. They know their real lives will begin once they get to their Ivy League colleges. There will be ivy, and there will be cute guys in the libraries (hopefully with English accents)! But when an unexpected event shows them they’re missing out on the full high school experience, it’s time to come out of the honors lounge and into the spotlight. They make a pact: They will each take on their greatest challenge—and they will totally rock it.
Gigi decides to run for student rep, but she’ll have to get over her fear of public speaking—and go head-to-head with gorgeous California Will. Bea used to be one of the best skiers around, until she was derailed. It could be time for her to take the plunge again. And Neerja loves the drama club but always stayed behind the scenes—until now.
These friends are determined to show that smart girls get what they want—but that could mean getting way more attention than they ever bargained for.

To enter, fill out the form below then come back on Saturday, June 30 to see if you've won. Good luck!

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

I AM NOT STUPID FUNNY.

I AM STUPID FAST.

My name is Felton Reinstein, which is not a fast name. But last November, my voice finally dropped and I grew all this hair and then I got stupid fast. Fast like a donkey. Zing

Now they want me, the guy they used to call Squirrel Nut, to try out for the football team. With the jocks. But will that fix my mom? Make my brother stop dressing like a pirate? Most important, will it get me girls -especially Aleah?

So I train. And I run. And I sneak off to Aleah's house in the night. But deep down I know I can't run forever. And I wonder what will happen when I finally have to stop.

I have been meaning to write this review for a long time. I read this book months ago and loved it. Felton is such a great character, real and typical teen boy. Reading about his growth spurt reminded me of my own boys (who are growing like weeds) and I’m wondering what puberty will be like for them.

Anyway, Felton went from tiny to titanic seemingly overnight, eating everything in sight, and then the football coach noticed how fast he could run and recruited him. On top of it all, his best friend Gus went to Caracas for the summer, leaving him with his other best-friend-who-really-isn’t-a-friend, and a really hot girl rents Gus’s house while he’s gone. His mom isn’t exactly stable and hasn’t gotten over the death of Felton’s father (ten years ago), and his brother practically has a mental breakdown. Basically, his whole life has been turned upside down. Everything Felton has perceived to be true suddenly isn’t, and he has to relearn who he is, who his friends are, and how to function in his family.

These are extraordinary circumstances, but I think teens experience this through ordinary things. So, they will be able to relate in a big way. Felton feels like a real teen boy with real thoughts and feelings and is a natural at denial (as are many teens). The story is funny and engaging, and I read it in a day. It's about football, but you don't need to be a football fan. I'm not, and I loved it.

If you like books about teens who feel authentic and real, this is for you. Definitely recommended. 

Winner of the May Book Giveaway

Happy Memorial Day!

Sorry this is a couple days late. It's been a busy weekend. So I'll just get right to the winners.

The winner of prize pack #1 is...

Nancy Luebke!!!

The winner of prize pack #2 is...

Inna Zelmanova!!!

Congratulations!! I'll get your books out to you asap. As for everyone else, stop by next saturday to see what I'm giving away next month!

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.

Interesting way to tell this story. There are a whole bunch of viewpoints, but I think the intended main characters are Gabie, Drew, and Kayla. It kind of worked.

The beginning is fascinating, compelling, and impossible to put down. I really liked all the official-like documents and transcripts introduced. It’s great to see everything that’s going on in the search for Kayla, as well as who is involved and who is suspected. And, in the very beginning, it’s not clear what’s going to be relevant info and what’s not. It keeps the reader guessing, which keeps us reading. I loved that.

As the story progresses, though, it becomes obvious that much of the info we’re getting isn’t relevant, like the autopsy report and the interview with Elizabeth Lamb. We were getting too much information at that point, including a few perspectives from the killer. As a result, I muttered to myself on multiple occasions for the story to ‘get on with it already.’ A good mystery plants real and fake clues, but the reader can’t figure out which is which until the very end. And that’s when we see the real clues and go ‘Ohhhh, that’s what that clue was about!’ I didn’t get that sense here. And, the action at the very end wasn’t as suspenseful as it could have been because I kept yelling at Drew and Gabie to just call the cops already.

Drew and Gabie were interesting characters. They felt very real with how they were dealing with Kayla’s disappearance, but sometimes Gabie felt over-the-top. I understand it would be hard to wrap her head around the fact that she was the original target, but still. Some of the things she does are kind of crazy. Kayla’s perspective was probably the most interesting because we see the path she goes on, from her initial fear to resigning herself to do whatever she needs to do in order to escape. That felt very real, and I rooted for her to survive.

For me, the story started out great, but then sort of fizzled into information overload and predictability. I think that if the story had been streamlined a bit more with less obvious red-herrings, this would have been a fantastically strong mystery. 

Quotes From Famous Writers

Here's some more great quotes for you all. Enjoy!

Success is spelled W - O - R - K.

- Robert Schuller

No one ever committed suicide while reading a book, but many have tried while trying to write one.

- Robert Byrne

What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax.

- Samuel Goldwyn

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

- Jean De La Bruyere

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

- Mark Twain

The greatest part of a writer´s time is spent in reading; in order to write, a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

- Samuel Johnson

Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing... the rest will follow.

- Jane Yolen

Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.

- P.G. Wodehouse

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

- Scott Adams

Eighty-five percent of what goes on in a novelist's head is none of his business.

- Stephen King

The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

- John Steinbeck

If you don't like my book, write your own.

If you don't think you can write a novel, that ought to tell you something.

If you think you can, do. No excuses.

If you still don't like my novels, find a book you do like.

Life is too short to be miserable.

If you like my novels, I commend your good taste.

- Rita Mae Brown