Ratings Systems for Books: Why This is a BAD Idea

Oy. If it's not one thing it's another in this world.

Twitter has lately been abuzz with talk of the study a professor at Brigham Young University did on language and such in YA literature and then her suggestion that we implement a ratings system for books akin to the movie or video game rating systems.

Let me caveat this here: I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I attended Brigham Young University for my undergraduate studies. While not ashamed of either fact, I don't talk about it here on the blog. This blog is not the place for talk of religion or politics. I intend to keep it that way so if you're getting worried by this, don't. I won't get preachy or anything like that on this blog.

And I think this is a stupid idea. Not only that, but I think this study, the professor's research, may have been bordering on wasteful of the tuition dollars spent at the school. If her research was subsidized in any way by grants or salary through the school, that is.

I'm not as familiar with the ratings systems for video games (*hands in geek card*) as I've largely stepped away from gaming over the last few years.

But the debate over the MPAA ratings system for movies is ever-raging. The biggest problem with the MPAA is that not all movies given the same rating are the same.

I don't go to R-rated movies, as a rule. I rebelled once in college and watched one. Which I have regretted ever since but that's my personal moral code. I rented "The King's Speech" on DVD and loved it. Yes, it was also rated R. But the difference between the two movies I'm discussing in this example are basically night and day. I found absolutely nothing offensive in the latter movie. The one I watched in college, however, had a lot that was pretty gratuitous. It added nothing to the story and was just there to be there.

The problem with ratings systems, aside from the obvious one of the moral code bias of the person or persons creating the system, is that not all books which under arbitrary guidelines would receive the same rating are the same. One book may be such that there are things entirely offensive and gratuitous but the other doesn't. This could hold especially true in non-fiction self help or memoirs. Not to say it wouldn't be the case in fiction, though.

Another factor to consider is the impact ratings will have on the timeline of publishing. How close to the set publishing date is the cut-off for getting a galley or ARC to the ratings committee? What happens if the ratings committee gives the book a rating which the publisher wishes to contest, but the ARCs have already gone out and reviews are written, ready to go out? There's a domino effect which will only compound as publishers and writers fight the system laid on them in order to get their work out in a timely manner, etcetera.

I'm not going to even touch the censorship issues that this would bring up. If you really want to see what the possible ramifications of this would be, just start googling the debate over the MPAA ratings on movies. The prospects are very similar to what would happen if this were implemented in literature.

The bottom line of all of this, in my opinion, is this: If you're worried about what your kids are reading, read the books as they do. Or before. But then discuss with your kids either a) the behaviors, etcetera in the book that you find objectionable, in a rational way, with a two-way conversation going on or b) why you are uncomfortable with them reading the material, etcetera.

Be a parent. Don't rely on others to tell you what may or may not be acceptable. And don't join the mob out there. Form your own opinions and help your kids to form theirs.

*steps off soap box*

Also, if you would like a far more eloquent take on this, go look up Kiersten White's blog. She put up a lengthy post about it this week.

Don't forget to enter the 500 posts giveaway! I'll draw prizes sometime in the first full week of June.

Update Tuesday: Whenever to whenever

Not sure when I last updated and such. Hence the ambiguous date range in the post title.

I've been working and working on Woven and I think it's finally ready for betas. I've done what I can for the voice and POV edits because I think I'm just too close to the book at this point. I've now gone through 5 drafts of the manuscript. Sigh. Once it's back from betas I'll let it sit some more and then revise further. I'd love to be querying this by mid-summer.

As for other projects, there has been a lot of seesawing in my brain as to which project to work on next. I originally thought I'd go back to my Storymaker Chronicles books that I'd begun writing a month or so ago. This series of two books is set in the same world as Woven and begins around the time of that book's trilogy's end.

Then I went to LDStorymaker's and, well, yeah. I've bounced around from project to project ever since. I might be resurrecting Clockworks and Cogs now re-named Dragon's Steam but at a future date. I say future because I realized something as I sat down to work on the world-building and such for that book.

I need to alternate between fantasy and not-fantasy if I want to keep my sanity. Even if it's just a short story. But my pattern has been that way for years. I find that I am creatively drained after writing a fantasy novel because I've put so much energy into the world building.

However, if I alternate and write even just a contemporary fantasy, one set in our world rather than an entirely created world, it's enough of a break from the mental gymnastics of world-building that I can write. But to try to create another world entirely so shortly after I created the last one is a no-go for me. I can't do it.

So I'm switching gears and resurrecting the action-adventure novel I'd shelved earlier this year. Already it's going great as I launch into the research and history-writing that is required of the story I want to tell. Soon I'll be plotting it and hopefully by the beginning of June I'll be writing the book itself.

How are your WiPs going?

Also, don't forget to enter my 500 posts giveaway! Your odds are really good right now of winning one of the prizes! I'll be drawing winners in early June.

Chase Your Dreams

So often, it seems, the publishing world's corner of the internet is full of posts about how long the process takes, how many surprises there are in store once we land an agent or a book deal, etcetera. It can start to feel discouraging and hopeless. It can become a driving force in our lives, if we choose to make it that way. Let it influence our work ethic and motivation, and so on.

But what is your dream? A book deal? A book on a shelf? A book in your hands with your name on the cover?

Never be afraid to chase your dreams. They just might come true in every way you hoped. They might come true in ways you never thought of but that turn out perfect for you.

The point is, just dream.

I was reading on IMDB the other day (I'm a nerd). Someone had said something about two actors and it left me with a question. So I went to the IMDB page for one of the two and started reading his in-depth biography that's posted there. (By in-depth I mean more than the little bios we authors write for ourselves for the back of our books or our websites.)

It started talking about how this TV show inspired him to become an actor and he pursued it in hopes of one day getting to play the title character. (Can you guess which show I'm talking about?) However many years later, guess what role he landed and played for three or four seasons (is my estimate)?

Don't be afraid to chase your dreams. They just might come true in big ways.

Also, don't forget to read my post reflecting on my blogging journey after 500 posts and comment for a chance to win prizes!

WiP Wednesday 4/29-5/5

I think I will be going back to a three-day-a-week schedule. We'll see how long it lasts.

To the updates!

Woven is going strong. I finished a round of revisions last week, previous to my writer's conference. I wanted to have a finished draft, should the need arise. (It didn't. But that's okay.) Looking ahead, I'll be making another couple of passes through the manuscript to try to incorporate some of the things I learned at the conference last weekend. The ideas are churning in my head, trying to cohere into something I can use.

My conference also left me pondering some different options for older stories, both short and novel-length. I'm still cogitating on those ideas and hoping to form a game plan for my writing soon.

How are your WiPs going?

And don't forget to enter my 500 posts giveaway! Great prizes (if I may say so myself) and anyone can win!

A Time for Reflection, I Suppose

It's been three years since I started blogging regularly.  Three years since I started really taking writing seriously. Well, it's not that I didn't take it seriously. I just decided that it was important enough to make time for it. Prior to that point, I'd written when I felt like it. Granted, I'd been in high school, university, and graduate school to that point in my writing life. But three years ago, I decided to make the time for writing. I wanted to be published, and I wanted to be serious about it.

This blog began in October 2008, the reason escapes me at the moment. It may have been for a class I was taking in graduate school at the time. I posted a couple of times, but I was timidly tapping the water's surface with my big toe. In June of the following year, I was out of school, out of work, and out of sanity. So I jumped into blogging.

Some of you reading this (imagining hordes of people reading but not commenting) have been around since those early days. Some of you may have only just discovered my blog. I remember that thrill of excitement when I signed on to the computer one morning to discover I had a follower! Someone was reading my blog! Then I had two, and it's grown quietly from there.

Is blogging on its way out? Maybe. I know that my reading habits have slacked off in that regard. Comments have certainly dropped here on the blog. But that's okay. I think there's really an ebb and flow to everything. This blog will stay put, riding those flows and currents. (How many cliches can I pack in to this paragraph, eh?)

With this post, I reach 500 total on the blog. To honor that, and thank all of you who have kept this tiny little blog on your reader, on your radar, I'm having a giveaway. Yep, a giveaway. It's been a while.

Don't worry, it's totally easy to enter. You just have to comment on this post. I'll draw random winners at the end of May. There are four prizes.

Grand Prize (1 Winner):

You Wish by Mandy Hubbard
Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
Hereafter by Tara Hudson
A full manuscript beta read

First Prize (2 Winners):

A full manuscript beta read
A $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card (or iTunes, if you want to use the card for ebooks)

Third Prize (1 Winner):
A partial manuscript read (50 pages or 5 chapters, whichever is longer. Also, round up if 50 is mid-chapter)

Thanks for being here, friends.

Contest rules: One entry per person. Leave a comment to enter. Please spread the word about this. If you're not a writer please don't hesitate to enter. Just let me know in your comment and I'll re-award the manuscript critique from your prize package. Contest not necessarily limited to four winners. Manuscripts submitted for critique must not be erotic or overly steamy. Otherwise any genre is allowed.

Author's Bookshelf: The Breakaway by Michelle Davidson Argyle

Why I read it: I received an ARC from Michelle as part of her pre-release promotional swing. I wanted to read it, which is why I'd signed up for the chance to get an ARC.

Mini-review: I liked the book. I did. Michelle's writing is phenomenal and the bar by which I judge my own works. It's not right, but it is. Her writing is so lyrical.

And now I want my own fancy-pants camera. So jealous of Naomi for that one.

Ah, Naomi. I have a love-hate relationship with this girl. So much of the time I just wanted to smack her upside the head and down the other. But it's the mark of excellent writing to elicit such intense emotions in the reader. I felt every emotion and had to keep reminding myself to read what was on the page and not skip forward for that emotion to be released.

I have to say that the book did start to feel a little long. But that could have just been that it was kind of hot where I was reading it and so that was making me cranky. I did enjoy the book though. It's definitely worth the time invested in it to read.

The Breakaway is just that, a break from the usual. This is YA but there's a healthy dose of adult perspective throughout. It's a fresh perspective in the YA genre and for that it's absolutely worth the read.

Final say: Thumbs up. If you're intrigued about it, read it.

BOOK DESCRIPTION: When Naomi Jensen is kidnapped, it takes her parents two days to realize she’s missing. Escape isn’t high on her list of priorities when all she has to return to is an abusive boyfriend and parents who never paid much attention to her. For the first time in her life she’s part of a family—even if it is a family of criminals. But she’s still a captive. In a desperate attempt to regain some control in her life, Naomi embarks on a dangerous plan to make one of her kidnappers think she’s falling in love with him. The plan works too well, and when faced with the chance to escape, Naomi isn’t sure she wants to take it.

The Breakaway is available now! You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else books are sold, both as an e-book and in print. Find it for a discounted price on the publisher’s website here: http://shop.rhemalda.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michelle lives and writes in Utah, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. She loves the seasons, but late summer and early fall are her favorites. She adores chocolate, sushi, and lots of ethnic food, and loves to read and write books in whatever time she can grab between her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She believes a simple life is the best life.

You can find Michelle on her blog, http://theinnocentflower.blogspot.com.

Happy Book Birthday for The Breakaway by Michelle Davidson Argyle!

Announcing THE BREAKAWAY by Michelle Davidson Argyle

If you like novels bridging the gap between young adult and adult, you don’t want to miss out on The Breakaway by Michelle Davidson Argyle. Author Zoe Winters calls this contemporary novel, “Lush, literary, and multi-layered.” Author Karen Amanda Hooper says it is, “A total mind-bender that will leave you breathless.”

BOOK DESCRIPTION: When Naomi Jensen is kidnapped, it takes her parents two days to realize she’s missing. Escape isn’t high on her list of priorities when all she has to return to is an abusive boyfriend and parents who never paid much attention to her. For the first time in her life she’s part of a family—even if it is a family of criminals. But she’s still a captive. In a desperate attempt to regain some control in her life, Naomi embarks on a dangerous plan to make one of her kidnappers think she’s falling in love with him. The plan works too well, and when faced with the chance to escape, Naomi isn’t sure she wants to take it.

The Breakaway is available now! You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere else books are sold, both as an e-book and in print. Find it for a discounted price on the publisher’s website here: http://shop.rhemalda.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michelle lives and writes in Utah, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. She loves the seasons, but late summer and early fall are her favorites. She adores chocolate, sushi, and lots of ethnic food, and loves to read and write books in whatever time she can grab between her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She believes a simple life is the best life.

You can find Michelle on her blog, http://theinnocentflower.blogspot.com. 

Look for my review of The Breakaway on Thursday!