Why "The Fire & Ice Book Series" is Middle Grade Fiction | Olivia J

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs," -Stephen King

I love indie authors. I love supporting indie authors. It's basically a part of my brand at this point. 

I also believe that all feedback is good feedback - save from things that are purely subjective and comments that aren't constructive criticism. 

I know that a lot of people love this series. I know that Erin has found a lot of success with this series, and that's great. I'm glad other people have enjoyed it and have been inspired by it. 

However, I personally don't get the hype. 

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If you're interested, my review for The Elementals can be found under the 2 star rating section here, and my review for The Lost Dreamer can be found under the 3 star rating section here, but they're not essential to understanding this blog post. 

But let's get on with why you actually clicked on this blog post . . . 

The Fire & Ice Book Series is Middle Grade Fiction

Forbes herself brands the Fire & Ice Book Series as a YA fantasy series, which is incorrect on several levels. The characters are sixteen, so that must mean it's YA, right? 

Wrong. 

This series is Middle Grade. It's not Young Adult.  It's important that you know this right off the bat, because if you go into this book thinking it's MG fantasy, then you'll probably like it. Unfortunately, I went into F&I series believing that it was YA, and this greatly impacted my perception of the series. 

I found this amazing article on Writer's Digest about the key differences between MG and YA.  It makes compelling points on why F&I is not YA. I will be using this article as evidence to support my points. I highly recommend checking this post out - it's super insightful.

The complexity and themes are what differentiates these two genres - not just age ranges. MG usually has to do with friendship, family, and the character's reactions to the immediate world around them. However, YA concerns itself with love, changing relationships, how the character fits into the world on a grander scale, and self-discovery/reflection. YA often tackles heavier and more nuanced content and themes, and MG has more of a focus on adventure and good overcoming evil. 

In all these cases, F&I fits the criteria for MG and not YA. I'm not saying that F&I should have been grimdark, but what I am saying is that in order for F&I to truly qualify for a YA title, it must earn it by fulfilling the conventions of the genre. 

For example, our main character Alice Hanley - and all of the characters for that matter - are undeniably good. The Elementals are good, and the Creatures of the Night Oak Forest and Cleo Lennox are bad. This kind of simplistic, black and white categorization is usually nowhere to be found in YA books, because teens have the self-awareness that the world and people are much more complex than that. When reading The Lost Dreamer, I felt so much sympathy for Cleo Lennox. She has the potential to be such an interesting and nuanced character in future books, but Erin glossed over all of the interesting things we could have explored with Cleo and wrote her as evil and vindictive. Granted, the end of The Lost Dreamer left this plot open-ended, so I'm hoping for some more interesting development with Cleo. 

The problem is that the way F&I goes about tackling its themes is characteristic of MG. Things are allowed to be a bit more cut-and-dry in MG, but not YA. F&I does a whole lot of telling in every aspect (characters, world, everything), which, again, you can get away with more in MG than in YA - and this is due to the nature of the audience. Older teenagers are able to think for themselves and deduce information from context clues - aspects of the story and characters can be more subtle, nuanced, and not stated outright. In contrast, middle-grade readers need to be spoon-fed certain aspects. And this isn't bad, it's just a hallmark of the genre. 

Now I'm not saying that Middle Grade isn't as deep or as complex as Young Adult,  because that's simply not true. What I am saying is that the two genres are deep and complex in different ways, and they both have different methods of going about it. 

To clarify, the fact that I'm insisting that F&I is not YA and is MG is not necessarily critique of the work itself. It's a critique of the branding and the genre choice that Erin Forbes has made. She would find much more success if she branded F&I as MG instead of YA. 

If you go into reading this with the mindset that The Fire & Ice Book Series is an uplifting and whimsical Middle Grade series, then you'll probably enjoy them. 

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*Phew*. That was a lot. Congrats if you made it to the end.  I haven't done one of this literary analysis blog posts in a while, mostly because they take a lot of time and mental energy, and those are two things I'm quite short of these days. 

~The WordShaker

"Inaccurate Portrayal of Mental Illness" - Debunking the Myth | Olivia J

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all," -Oscar Wilde

"(in)accurate portrayal of mental illness"

That phrase gets thrown around a hell of a lot these days. 

And I'm sick of people abusing it. 

Phrases like this get thrown around concerning shows like 13 Reasons Why, and basically any other form of art that involves a story. However, it is grossly and inherently problematic because it assumes something extraordinarily harmful about mental illness itself:  that mental illness is homogenous. 

I think that most of us can agree that 13 Reasons Why is not a good show. The writing is poor, the characters are inconsistent, and the depiction of suicide is harmful. 

Now before you all light your torches and call me a hypocrite, let me establish:  there is a wrong way to portray mental illness, but there is not one single way to portray mental illness. 

Let me explain. Portraying mental illness incorrectly involves assigning inaccurate or inconsistent symptoms to a mental illness, perpetuating harmful or incorrect stereotypes and stigma around mental illness, and not portraying mental illness as something that is treatable. Basically, the wrong way of portraying mental illness is spreading inaccurate information. Most other things are up for debate.

The tricky part is that many people - including myself - found 13 Reasons Why as a very harmful and inaccurate portrayal of mental illness (I'm looking at you, producers-entirely-ignoring-the-advice-from-a-psychiatric-board). It idealizes the fallout from suicide, spinning it out to be revenge instead of untreated mental illness. It blames suicide on everyone else instead of Hannah Baker. It never puts a quantifier on mental illness, and paints an utterly hopeless picture of the topics it explores. 

However, I've spoken with many people who have identified with the bullying and social aspects of 13 Reasons Why. And who am I to invalidate their feelings and experiences? Despite that the myrad of reasons why 13 Reasons Why falls flat on its face, bullying can contribute to mental illness, and if 13 Reasons Why resonated with someone - if someone saw themselves in 13 Reasons Why and they felt it was an accurate portrayal of their struggles with bullying and mental illness - then I have no right to tell them any differently. Because guess what?

There's no one single way to have a mental illness. 

From depression, anxiety, and trauma, to schizophrenia, disassociative identity disorder, and eating/substance abuse disorders, everyone experiences mental illness differently. My PTSD doesn't look like your PTSD. My friend's depression doesn't look like my family member's depression. Portrayals and/or content that one person finds harmful or triggering may not bother or affect another. 

To claim that your experience of mental illness is the correct or only experience and that your experience of mental illness ought to be the only one portrayed in media is unbelievably selfish and insensitive to the millions of other people who experience mental illness differently than you.

Truthfully, this is partially a call-out post to myself, because I've claimed that 13 Reasons Why isn't an accurate portrayal of mental illness, because it's not. For me. However, I'm retracting that statement to some degree because I know it resonates with some people, and I don't want to invalidate them. I'm not perfect, and I continue to evolve and grow as an artist, a consumer, and a critic. 

However, next time you're tempted to call a piece of media an 'inaccurate portrayal of mental illness', consider whether it is literally a factually incorrect and harmful portrayal, or whether it just doesn't align with your experiences and therefore you personally can't relate to it. 

Because nine times out of ten, there's someone out there who can relate to it, and they shouldn't be robbed of the experience of being profoundly impacted and deeply understood by storytelling. Nobody should. 

~The WordShaker

Gendered Prose: A Study of "A List of Cages"

"Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words," - Mark Twain

Man, I'm just whipping out these analysis posts like there's no tomorrow . . .

Anyway, my current read is A List of Cages by Robin Roe, and I'm about halfway through it. 

However, what I have read got me thinking. A List of Cages features two male protagonists - a senior and a freshman in high school - written by an adult female. And as I was reading, something just didn't feel . . . right. 

If you're not an avid reader, then you might not know what I mean when I say a character "doesn't sound like a guy" or "doesn't sound like a girl" - like, of course they don't, they're just black and white letters on a page; or, men and women don't 'sound' a certain way when written. 

However, in true Olivia fashion, I'm about to lay out some literary truth on you . . . 

Gendered prose is a thing. 

First, of course, we need to define what I mean by 'gendered prose'. (This more specifically applies to male writers writing female characters or female writers writing male characters.) 

Gendered prose is when the character in question has thoughts, actions, feelings, and syntax that aligns with their gender. In short, when read within the context of the story, the character 'sounds female' or 'sounds male'. Which, when stated like that, sounds stereotypical. 

However, as a general rule of thumb, men and women are different. Not only are they biologically different, their brains are wired differently, men and women react to certain situations differently, the list goes on. 

Now, don't misconstrue any of this and assume that I mean every male character should respond to X stimuli the same way, or that female characters have to be dreamy flower-children, etc. What this means is that, at the most elementary level of the character, their gender has to factor into their identity, and subsequently their thoughts and actions. This involves understanding men and women - and their differences - on a biological and sociological level. 

Why is this important? Why can't we just write people, and then figure out their gender later? 

As I've just stated, whether you like it or not, gender/sex is a cornerstone in a person's biology and identity. Therefore, it will influence them as a whole person. However, it's important for a character to 'sound' like a certain gender for this one reason:

Having a male character read as male is important for the reader being able to visualize and connect with the character, both physically and mentally, for the character to accurately gel together in the reader's mind. If this aspect of the prose fails, then there will be a disconnect between what the prose states and what the prose unintentionally implies. 

Now, the real question is what makes the prose and a character sound 'male' or 'female'? 

That's a good question, and I'm not entirely sure I have a concrete answer. This is the dilemma I found myself in with A List of Cages. Something didn't feel right and I knew what it was, but I couldn't understand why. 

However, after a discussion post on Instagram (@olivia.j.the.wordshaker) and doing some further digging, I've realized that it comes down to a couple of things. If not, at least use this as a brainstorming place in improving your ability to write the opposite gender. 

1. Emotions

This is a big one. As a general rule, women are more outwardly emotional than men. Women also respond to stress and conflict differently than men do. Include descriptions of distinctly different physical and emotional reactions to stimuli. 

2. Interactions 

The way men interact with other men, the way women interact with other women, and the way men and women act together are three vastly different wheelhouses. 

3. Style/Syntax

This pertains to the actual words used to describe something, and the framing and structure of the sentences. Men tend to get right to the point, while women tend to be a bit more metaphorical and flowery. 

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This is by no means a comprehensive list, and I suppose the takeaway from all of this is do your own research! Find out the differences, and work our your own way to write the opposite gender in the way that best fits the character and you as a writer. 

Again, take these tips with a grain of salt and avoid being stereotypical. Create your character and sprinkle these on like the sprinkles on top of a cupcake!

~The WordShaker