Squeetus summer book club: Princess Academy, chapter 4

Chapter 4

Miri helps Gerti: Miri has this fierce sense of justice, of right and wrong, and here’s an instance when it gets her into trouble. This character trait/flaw is one I’m intimately familiar with.

Page 54: Miri speaks out and gets them all punished. This scene was tricky and took many attempts, partly because it has such lasting consequences. I feel for Miri here! She means well, but the outcome is not what she expects. Was she right to speak out? Better to follow the rules? I don’t think that everything a main character does has to be the right choice, and I don’t want any of my stories insisting that there’s only one right way to do anything. Her actions here were true to her character and moved the story along, but I don’t know if she acted well or not. There are many events like this one in the book. What I hope for my readers is not that they try to model their own behavior after any character, but that the actions of a character help them think through things and decide perhaps what they would do, figure out what they believe about things.

Miri’s character: I feel like I was kind of lazy when I started writing this book and made Miri a lot like myself. As her character was forming on the page through the action, I let her react as it felt natural to me, let her relationships form as I remembered mine from that age. This made her character trickier rather than easier to write. It’s hard to be objective about yourself! Again, figuring her out took many drafts.

“Miri thought she understood how a lost goat would feel on meeting a pack of wolves.”: Everything in the book is pushed through Miri’s own experience. Although it’s a third person narrator (says “she” instead of “I”) and uses words in ways Miri might not, still, every simile, metaphor, analogy, etc., must be one in Miri’s realm of experience, and since she’s spent her life isolated on a mountain top, that experience is narrow. So, a lot of goat metaphors. Writing this book, I grew very fond of goats.

Page 58: Another trait Miri and I share--trying to make people laugh. How many times have I said something I thought was funny and no one agreed! I feel for you, Miri, darling.

Academy princess: Miri has a goal! It’s important for the main character to have something they desire. There were many things she longed for back home--to be useful, to be sure of her pa’s love, Peder--but here’s where she first names something she’ll strive for there at the academy.

Laura asks: "what part of Miri's story came to you first?" The general concept came first, the idea of a village where one girl might be chosen as the next princess. The characters and why the story mattered to them came through the process of writing.

Sally asks: "I've often wondered when reading PA if you did research on stone cutting, working in a quarry and stone in general to write this book?" Yes indeed, I did as much research as I could, and as usual with research, ended up only using a fraction of what I learned. For a while there, I felt like an expert in marble and granite quarrying!

Katie asks: "Did you do very much research in your first draft or did you just write and then research?" I do minimal research before beginning, write the first draft or two, and then do more intensive research, so that I already know what I'm looking for. I like the story to lead the research, not the other way around. I know other writers research in different ways.

Comments

[Julie]

Wonderful info, Shannon! I look forward to these book club entries every day. This particular chapter really made me feel for Miri. Sometimes it is necessary to make your MC suffer, because it keeps things tense and raises the stakes. Love how Miri's attempts at joking are actually so astute and reasonable that they seem to be undermining of authority.

[Heather]

This chapter is the one where I really fell in love with Miri. I really identify with her. It made me so mad that she was punished for trying to help Gerti and then when they all got punished just because she was talking. I know my mouth (and talking when I wasn't supposed to be, not necessarily what I said) got me in trouble a LOT as a kid.

By the way, do you realize how hard it is to read just one chapter a day? But, since I always follow assignments exactly, a chapter a day it is lol

How do you hear the names of the characters pronounced in your head? It's always weird for me when I discover I've been hearing a name a different way and have to try to fix it in my head. My daughter read Ally Condie's Matched and Crossed a few months ago, became obsessed with the stories as she often does when reading books she loves, and read everything related to them she could on-line. It was then that she discovered that she was hearing Cassia's name wrong. I read them after that discovery and was glad because, having never heard of that particular flower before that, I totally would have been hearing it wrong. With names like the ones in PA, I really wonder if I am hearing them the way you are or not. Actually, come to think of it, I hear Peder's name two different ways. I guess it just depends on which way my brain wants to read it at the time.

[Mary mom of 4]

I think you are very brave to do this summer book club! :) As a former blogger and a mom, I can see that it's a lot of work to commit yourself to! My question(s) is - Do you define your chapters as you go along? Have you predetermined what you want to happen in each chapter (made an outline) or do you just let things unfold? (PS - Thanks for being willing to answer questions and do this exercise. It's very interesting to read your thoughts.)

[Amy]

I am loving this summer book club! I already feel like I'm more intimately acquainted with the story, and we're just to chapter 4! I'm sure it must be a ton of work!

My question is similar to some that have already been asked. so I hope you'll forgive the redundancy: When you begin a story, do you write out a general outline? In other words, do you have an idea of where you want the story to go, or do you just start writing and see where the story takes you? I ask this because I've heard from other authors who say they just write chapter by chapter, and my organized and "see-the-end-from-the-beginning" nature screams out in protest at this method. So I wanted to see what you do since I love and respect your writing so much. Thanks!

[PK]

I'm enjoying these posts so much!
Haha, the first time I read "Miri has a goal!" I misread it as "Miri has a goat!"

[Paige]

I really appreciate your comments about page 54. I'm not sure if I feel it was the right choice or not, but I like that it shows the consequences of the choice. I think that is such an important thing to see in books. Is it difficult as you write to ensure the actions have consequences?

[download flash games]

I think you are very brave to do this summer book club! :) As a former blogger and a mom, I can see that its a lot of work to commit yourself to! My question(s) is - Do you define your chapters as you go along? Have you predetermined what you want to happen in each chapter (made an outline) or do you just let things unfold? (PS - Thanks for being willing to answer questions and do this exercise. Its very interesting to read your thoughts.)
+1