I’m not sure what the phrase, “Ready, Set, Action,” really means, but I’m guessing that it means, “Get ready, Set. We’re about to take action.” Or, “Ready the set! We’re about to go to action.” Places everyone. Get on your mark. Get set. Go!

Actors have marks. They have places. Before the scene moves into action, everyone has to be on their mark. The scene has to be set—has to be readied for the action that is coming.

One of the things that struck me as I read Wayfarer for the second time yesterday was that it would make a great movie. The inside of the oak tree is a wonderful setting for movie scenes. I want to go to Disneyland and walk through that tree. I want to live in that tree. I want to see the carvings. I want to see what they use for dishes.

Wayfarer is full of images that struck me as great movie images. Black crows winging across blue skies. Beautiful seductresses. Faeries caught in cages in an old church that has been taken over to be used for evil. Pristine islands, glittering green, in a sparkling sea.

Traveling inside of a backpack that contains stinky socks. Sitting at a table in the Oak, drinking wine offered by the queen.

In all of those scenes, there was action. The story was moving. There was danger. There was fighting and fleeing. There were goals and conflicts and failings and new goals. There were hardships faced and friendships forged. Action, action, action.

But first the set was readied. First the scene was set.

Whether your style is to add more details or less, one thing you have to do is set the scene. Show me enough of the setting so I don’t get lost, and show me who is in the scene. That is the minimum required. You have to write with clarity so the reader is not surprised by some element of the setting half-way through the scene or by some character who suddenly speaks when we weren’t even aware he was in the room.

What RJ Anderson does, beyond that minimum, is give us pictures that are striking and not mundane. She doesn’t go into great detail in her descriptions—she’s paints her settings somewhat sparsely and leaves us room to fill in the gaps with our imaginations, but the details she does give are striking.

WARNING!

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW!

MINOR ONES, BUT POSSIBLY THERE IS STUFF HERE THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO READ UNTIL AFTER YOU READ THE BOOK.
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What makes the settings in Wayfarer striking? I think it’s the way Anderson sets them in opposition to one another. The contrasts make them stand out. An earnestness burning out of gray/green eyes in the face of a boy who isn’t sure he believes in anything anymore. A lovely young faery meant for flying and freedom, stuck in a backpack with dirty socks. A choice between a peaceful island and a life of fighting evil in a sin-soaked world. A church building taken over by an unholy usurper.

The good queen offers wine to her subjects while the bad queen drinks the blood of her subjects. The old man working in the world, teaching in the university, laboring in the trenches, sits at a simple table and offers simple food to the weary traveler who is poor and needy and has no money to pay. The super righteous people, ruling in their beautiful court, gleaming in their perfection, who have not dirtied their hands with the sins of the world, forget to be hospitable.

These contrasts make the settings memorable. The opulence of the court stands out all the more because it’s laid on top of the poor man’s table. The evil in the church building stands out because its taken hold of a place where Sunday School children in the past had been taught to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. They had been encouraged to think about their salvation, and now the people in the building are enslaved to evil and are not allowed to work out anything.

I can see this book as a movie. I love books more than movies, but I gotta tell you, I love that big screen, too. And I think I would love to go, via a movie, inside the Oak and to travel with Timothy and Linden to look for the Children of Rhys and to see them in the church before the throne of the evil empress. Very rich and striking scenes, all.

So I figured out what feels off about the cover of Wayfarer. Linden has a mop of unruly brown curls. The girl on the cover is far too calm and well-brushed to be Linden.

And the fact that I know this—the fact that I know who Linden is and I know that her hair is always a little messy (“Her head was bent, her face hidden behind her turbulence of hair.”), and I know that she’s always got a bit of a breathless look on her face—is proof that RJ Anderson has given me a character who is alive, in my mind. A character who has a definite personality. A character who feels like a real person.

Wayfarer is the story of Timothy, a missionary kid, questioning the faith of his parents and searching for truth; and Linden, youngest of the faeries of the Oakenwyld, and the one called upon to save her people.

The Oakenfolks are dwindling, the queen is dying, and Linden is charged with finding faeries wiling to share their magic. She and Timothy, faced with a common foe, end up bound to one another in a fight for survival.

Reasons I loved this book:

• I like the characters. All the characters feel real to me. More than that, I really cared about Timothy and Linden. They were brave, and honest, and loyal, and easy to love, even though neither one was perfect.
• The story is exciting and I wanted to see how the Oakenfolk would survive.
• There is real danger. I really worried about Timothy and Linden.

So the first time I read the book, I whipped through it, just enjoying the story. I liked these kids and was rooting for them from the start. I enjoyed seeing Knife and Paul again, because I loved them in Spell Hunter. And I wanted to find out more about the Oakenfolk and see if they would get their magic back.

But the second time I read the story, I picked up on something that I think is important to the author, because I’ve seen it in both books now. It’s the matter of Christian isolation. Anderson is not a fan of isolationism, I think I can safely say. She wants to see missionaries go out instead of Christians circling the wagons against a hostile world.

In the first book the faeries find out that their isolation is killing them. Killing their creativity first, and then literally killing them.

In this book the author once again speaks against isolationists (I won’t say how, exactly, because I don’t want to give spoilers.) But she adds to this book some thoughts on hypocrisy.

There are Christians who should be following the command to “let your light so shine before men that they would see your good works and praise your Father in heaven.” Instead, these people are persecuting the stranger in their midst. And so the Father is not praised. Instead, his very existence is called into question.

The book is full of false appearances—an old church that is now a place of evil and oppression, invisible islands, and beautiful antagonists. There are also faeries who disguise themselves, pretending to be something they’re not, so they can take advantage of others. There are other faeries who say they are in favor of love, but aren’t willing to do the hard work of loving.

Finally we arrive at the end, and we find the true heroes. The ones who live as they say they believe. The ones who reject hypocrisy and are willing to sacrifice to save others simply because it’s the right thing to do.

This was a very satisfying book…maybe not quite as good as the first one. Hard to say. I always do love the first meeting of a new place and a new people best, I think. But this was very good. I eagerly await the next one!

Today is the first day of the KidzBookBuzz.com blog tour for RJ Anderson’s wonderful second novel, Wayfarer.  I read the first book, Spell Hunter, a couple of months ago and was sure I’d found a new favorite author. (I reviewed Spell Hunter here and here.) I’m happy to say that book two has borne out my first impression: RJ Anderson knows how to give us entertaining, thoughtful, exciting stories, with lovable characters.

I’ll give you my review of Wayfarer tomorrow.

For now, just for fun: Here is the UK cover of this book, next to the US cover. I originally thought I didn’t like the UK covers as much as the US covers, but I think now…those UK covers are pretty striking. The US cover of Wayfarer, is a little pedestrian, perhaps. What do you all think?

Other blogs on the tour:

The Book Cellar
The Hungry Readers
My Own Little Corner of the World
KidzBookBuzz.com
Reading is My Superpower
Book Crumbs
Becky’s Book Reviews
Fireside Musings
A Christian Worldview of Fiction
Homeschool Book Buzz
Homespun Light
Book Review Maniac

I’m a sucker for all things Narnia.

I have been slightly disappointed with the movies because they’ve messed with my memories of characters I have long loved. I thought in the first two movies the kids were misunderstood and misrepresented. They were petty and bratty. It’s true that in the book the characters were flawed, but the flaws were not modern-day, spoiled, brattiness and selfishness, I don’t think. I don’t think the movies got to the depths of the pride or the heights of the nobility that the kids possessed–the first through their sin natures and the second through their understanding that Aslan loved them, which made them want to be better people.

I’ve read the books maybe eight or nine times. But I haven’t read them in ten years or thereabouts, so I will admit that I might be forgetting how things really were and remembering what I read into the books.

I don’t plan on reading the books again, either, until the movies are done, because I want to see and enjoy the movies. And I suspect the more I forget about the books, the more I will enjoy the movies. Prince Caspian went far afield of the book, I know. But I love the movies, on the one hand, just because I love magic on the big screen. I want to enjoy the movies.

Well, here’s the trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader—which may be my favorite of all Narnia books. I love the Dawn Treader—the boat—and the voyage. I love Reepicheep. I love, love, love those idiot dufflepuds! (What can I say? I can relate to the stupid creatures that think a good God is just a party-pooper. I pity the poor things who are so very stupid—so completely blind.)

And then, no. Dawn Treader is probably not my favorite Narnia book. Probably whichever book I’m reading at the time is my favorite. Anyway, take a peek at the trailer and you tell me. Are we getting a movie that is like the book or are we getting a remake of the Prince Caspian movie? Was the white witch in Dawn Treader, tempting Edmund? Were the boys once again disgruntled at being treated like kids when they were really kings and queens? Was there really WWII stuff going on? I don’t remember any of that. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. And even if the movie isn’t like the book, I love seeing the magic and I can’t wait to go. Opening night! I’ll be there.

Thanks to Filmchat for this video. I have no idea why the cover there is in Spanish.

David Caruba gave a summary of his State of Children’s Book Publishing talk, over on Kathleen Temean’s Writing and Illustrating blog.

YA remains hot! Yes!
Fantasy remains hot! Yee haw!
Dystopian and adult cross-over is sizzling! Yahoo!

I’m all over this action.

Vampires keep selling. Oh well, can’t win them all.

I want to comment on one point that David makes:

Market trend bad: publishers looking for “blockbuster books” (more pressure on authors to sell thousands of copies), publishers insisting on writers revising without contract, and publishers acquiring based on rumors of what Stephanie Myers’ next book will be about.

I’m not sure why publishers looking for blockbuster books is bad. I say this as an author who has yet to sell a book. For me, I see this desire for blockbusters as a good think. It means that if a publisher finally picks me up, he is doing it because he thinks my debut might have blockbuster potential, and it means that he is willing to put some marketing money and elbow grease behind my book. Now after I sell a book…if my debut doesn’t meet expectations, I know I’ll be singing a different tune. But right now, I have the same desire as the publisher. I want to craft a book that is so compelling that each reader tells ten friends they have got to read this new book.

I do hope publishers will give books time to build, but I don’t want them to quit searching for and contracting books that are good enough to be blockbusters. What’s the alternative? Contracting books that aren’t very good and that won’t appeal to very many people? Why would anyone want to do that? Yes, we want thoughtful books, written with beauty and grace, but there is nothing to say we can’t put thought and beauty into interesting books with great and exciting premises.

Believing that, I also think it’s fine for publishers to insist on revisions prior to contracting books. I want to be pushed to write the best book I have in me. I want an editor who can grasp what I’m trying to do and who can help me accomplish that. I think an editor willing to take the time to work with untried authors and to share her expertise to bring authors along is a God-send.

The editor has to take the book to committee and has to be able to say, “This is a great book. It’s ready to go. It’s going to sell. I know the author is easy to work with and is willing to market and is able to take direction and will work her butt off to sell this book.” I figure if I’ve worked with editor prior to her taking the book to committee she is going to be better able to whip up excitement for me in-house, and that’s where the excitement has to start.

Now to the last point that David makes—that publishers are acquiring based on rumors about the topic of Myers’ next book….

Please, Lord, move Myers’ to write a fairytale/romance that contrasts lust and love and contentment and complacency and that has a slave girl saving the world as she struggles to grow up and learn that joy and reward come from self-sacrifice. Amen.