Twice a week my sisters and I go to my parent's house. My
mom has dementia, and my dad is still taking care of her, so we go over to make
sure my mom gets a good shower and my dad gets adult conversation.
If you've ever been alone with a couple of little kids for
days at a time, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Well, a few weeks ago, my twelve year old nephew came with
his mom. He had my book, Fractured
Memories, in his hand and a very serious look on his face.
I said, “What's up?”
He looked at me gravely and said, “Jo, I think I found a
mistake in your book.”
Now I'm thinking typo or something like that, so I shrugged
and said, “Probably, it's hard to get a perfect copy edit.”
He shook his head. “No, I mean a...” He trailed off. Then he
asked me if I'd ever studied math...drat I can't think of what exactly he
asked. It sounded like math theory or something. Anyway, I was like, “Uh, no.”
In my mind I was like, “Where does he come up with this stuff??”
So he sits up straight, wiggles his little butt, opens my
book—which he has two post it notes in—and starts to read this paragraph:
The man on the right
stepped in, so she went for him first. Before she got there, someone caught her
shoulder from behind. She and Pelton had run through this scenario a thousand
times. She ducked, swiveled around behind the man, wrapped her arms around his
neck and had both of her knives at his throat before he could do anything.
My nephew was confused. I can see why. Action scenes are
hard to describe in general, and it’s often better to be vague and let the
audience fill in the gaps. After I understood his question, which was about how
one second there was someone behind her and the next there wasn’t, I said, “Stand
up, we’ll play it out.”
So there we were, my oldest sister, my youngest nephew and I
all acting out a fight scene.
It’s a bit difficult to direct people when they don’t have
any fighting experience, but after a few tries, I lunged for my sister, and had
my nephew grab my shoulder from behind. Then I turned, went around him, got
behind him and crossed my wrists in front of his neck.
Poor kid was like, “Oh.”
I may have also impressed my sister.
We laughed and he showed me something else he didn’t like in
the book. I smiled and noted his comments.
I’ve taken all sorts of criticism about my books, and it’s
always tricky. Honestly, when my nephew started talking math talk I was
instantly irritated. Like a twelve year old knows more than I do about math,
and what did it have to do with my book? He was just trying to look smart in
front of everyone.
But I took a breath and shoved those thoughts aside and
asked him to explain. He’s not a strong reader yet, and what I took out of the
conversation was that he’s probably not quite ready for my writing style. Good
to know when parents ask me about it.
Either that or I could restructure my action scenes. Which I’ll also be looking at.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that a critique, no matter
where it comes from, can have some merit. But don’t listen to haters. They’re
just annoying.
