(no subject)
29/10/07 19:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyI am so offended that there are picture books about weight loss. I mean, there's the health perspective--which is that kids should be running around and eating good food, but they should not be worrying about weighing too much, because you have weird growth spurts when you're a kid and sometimes your weight and height are out of balance in a way that will work itself out naturally as you continue to grow.
But the more I think about it the more I realize that it's mostly an aesthetic thing. Weight loss is just too small for fiction, even for a picture book.
Beginning writers get the template of a story as being something like: protagonist has problem. Protagonist attempts to solve problem. At last, a solution works. Yay, happy ending. But this doesn't work. One of the few useful points in David Gerrold's book on writing science fiction (in between the bits where he was enamored with his own writing) is the place where he suggests that the difference between the solutions that don't work and the one that does has to be that the solution that does work comes from a moment of deep insight. And that moment of deep insight can actually make an ending work for me even when there's a giant gaping hole in the surface plot.
"I should lose weight" is not an insight. It's what everyone is already trying to tell you. "If I eat good food and run around, I will lose weight" is not an insight. You can pick that up from any given issue of a women's magazine.
Give me books about the heart. (And there ARE picture books that do this right. Not many, but they exist). Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with a book about a shiny truck. But there is a great deal wrong with a book that tries to use a cute animal to convey a small, petty, insignificant moral.
(Icon just 'cause Kevin Henkes is one of those picture book artists who DOES know that picture books can be about deep important things without being about Big Social Issues.)
But the more I think about it the more I realize that it's mostly an aesthetic thing. Weight loss is just too small for fiction, even for a picture book.
Beginning writers get the template of a story as being something like: protagonist has problem. Protagonist attempts to solve problem. At last, a solution works. Yay, happy ending. But this doesn't work. One of the few useful points in David Gerrold's book on writing science fiction (in between the bits where he was enamored with his own writing) is the place where he suggests that the difference between the solutions that don't work and the one that does has to be that the solution that does work comes from a moment of deep insight. And that moment of deep insight can actually make an ending work for me even when there's a giant gaping hole in the surface plot.
"I should lose weight" is not an insight. It's what everyone is already trying to tell you. "If I eat good food and run around, I will lose weight" is not an insight. You can pick that up from any given issue of a women's magazine.
Give me books about the heart. (And there ARE picture books that do this right. Not many, but they exist). Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with a book about a shiny truck. But there is a great deal wrong with a book that tries to use a cute animal to convey a small, petty, insignificant moral.
(Icon just 'cause Kevin Henkes is one of those picture book artists who DOES know that picture books can be about deep important things without being about Big Social Issues.)
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(no subject)
30/10/07 00:13 (UTC)Holy crap. I did not know this. That is seriously jacked up!!!
(no subject)
30/10/07 00:50 (UTC)(no subject)
10/11/07 04:01 (UTC)And yeah, I don't think much of the owner in the book either--w/most Labs, it's all you can do to run around & play fetch w/them enough. But I suppose if your owner never does it you'd become a couch potato dog. :P
(no subject)
30/10/07 02:36 (UTC)People continue to suck.
(no subject)
30/10/07 14:12 (UTC)And more YA diet books keep coming out... it's like, they TRY to be not clueless, but they end up saying "You should love your body just the way it is! Except, hate it just enough so that you're not FAT."