Category Archives: Books

My Date With Your Manuscript (How to Pace Your First 100 Pages)

Posted on by under Books, Career

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to the craft and then the business of writing is the person who says that they want to write a novel but don’t enjoy reading–or at the very least, cannot even bring themselves to do it for the sake of their craft.

… what.

I honestly don’t think that should be even allowed. If agents and publishers and editors accepted credentials in addition to having written a solid manuscript, being a well-read author should be among those credentials that they look for. Being an intern with SG Literary Scouting over the summer has taught me more about writing novels than strict technical study ever would, and a similar practice should be encouraged for any author.

As an intern, I read the first 100 pages of up-and-coming/soon-to-be-published/bestselling North American novels, review them, and then make a recommendation to the book scout regarding whether or not the manuscript should be considered for international rights sales. Basically, I am one of the few gates you need to pass on one of many possible roads to get your novel published in foreign markets. Having this kind of power has taught me so much more about the business of selling a novel by using your writing, your craft, your novel. As a writer, I’ve always known that the first 100 pages are crucial, but I’ve never understood the gravity of that advice until I’ve had to read other people’s first 100 pages six times a week and make an opinion about whether or not they are worth an investment.

But let’s get to the juicy stuff:

I’m on a date with your manuscript. Like on any date, I’m hopeful but anxious. I’ve seen many ugly manuscripts with poor manners, and despite all the disappointment, I can still hang on to the hope that your manuscript is The One.

  1. You have 10 pages to get me hot and sweaty.Observations: Do you walk in nervously? Or do you make it clear what your purpose is immediately? If you aren’t straightforward, then make me curious. Introduce yourself confidently, hugging me warmly at our first meeting, flatter me at once. Or introduce yourself slowly and shyly, give me a mysterious smile, and give an alluring but vague observation about how I look tonight.
  2. Because I’m on a date, and I’m a wishful thinker (i.e., I’m an intern, and I have to go through with this), I’ll give you until page 40. Max.By page 40, if there isn’t a purpose, what the hell am I even doing here? Why haven’t you set me up with conversation topics? Make me ask a question that I so desperately want you to answer.
  3. Somewhere between pages 50-80, I have to stop counting pages. Distract me. Woo me. Whisper sweet seductions. Make me want more.At some point, I need to be listening intently to your story. You need to have reeled me in. Made me glance at my phone and said, “Is it really that late?”
  4. If I can surmise the important details of your first 100 pages–our date–in two sentences, nothing important has really happened.When my girlfriend texts me after the date and asks how it went, “good” is not the response you want me to give her. If she asks what happened, and all I can say is, “We talked and ate for a bit”, nothing memorable/worthwhile/worth retelling happened.
  5. If I can’t describe an inciting incident, I’m probably not going home with you.

When querying and submitting manuscripts, I know it’s common practice to ask for the first 100 pages. But it is people like me who are reading those first 100 pages: people who have to read it. You need to be thinking about the endgame: readers, consumers, browsers in bookstores. If you don’t get them immediately, they won’t even be making it to page 100. So make every one of those pages count.

Summer Reads: “The Grapes of Math” (Bellos) — Why a Literature Student Loves Math

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The first of my summer reads is The Grapes of Math: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life by Alex Bellos, known as Alex Through the Looking Glass in the UK…. for a reason. I prefer the original title, because it shows the connection between mathematics and literature. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, was lesser known as Charles Dodgson, a mathematician and logician.

As I have written about before, I am a numberphile, but unfortunately, numbers are not Jiaphiles. I have always been, without a doubt, humanities-minded, but I had a fantastic teacher in grade 10, who introduced to me the foundations of mathematics and pre-calculus and helped me to the first A I remember receiving in math. Math became a different kind of magic to me over the next few years. It was my little glimpse into the wonders of science. Two-thirds through my integral calculus course in university, however, I realized that barely passing math was just not in my wiring. Although I was fascinated by math, it was not worth making my GPA suffer.

Imagining a world in which I could not learn about math and draw sigmas and summands, however, made me quite sad. The next time I walked into a bookstore, I headed straight for the science shelf, and I found these creative non-fiction works related to math, and I knew I had found my outlet. Bellos’ Grapes of Math is the first book I’ve finished this summer.

I don’t know how to recommend it to the regular reader–that is, someone who didn’t venture into university calculus–because I think that some of the things I read made much more sense because I was familiar with e and π and and x, y. I do know that the book is written to be accessible to everyone. It is truly a book on how life reflects numbers and how numbers reflect life, and in that way, I think it is a book for the layperson.

The book is personal, interesting, and reads like a story. All of the concepts that I had taken for granted in school suddenly had a history and a discovery behind them. People had to think deeply about the important beginnings of chapters that I barely studied for. It made math feel like reading Hobbes’ Leviathan or Plato’s Republic… but the connection between Plato and math really isn’t that far.

The note on the author at the back of the book tells me that Bellos is a professor of not only mathematics, but of philosophy, and that is so important.

So many of my peers see science and art as something so separate from each other. Being “humanities-minded” means that I cannot appreciate mathematics… but nothing can be farther from the truth. The giants of mathematics, the shoulders of whom mathematicians and physicists like Newton sit on, were Greek philosophers. Mathematics, the purest of sciences, arose from the thinking and the search for wisdom involved in philosophy, perhaps seen as the “fluffiest” of the humanities.

When I wanted to specialize in both English and math, and I told people this, I always got a reaction. People said it was interesting that my brain worked like that. One of my oldest friends claimed my brain was “too powerful”, which he meant as a joke and was one that I laughed at. The art of mathematics reminds me so much of English. Reading The Grapes of Math reminded me that students of math are only studying and building upon discoveries and philosophies of mathematicians before them, using their theorems and proofs to solve real life problems. How different is that, really, from students of literature reading Shakespeare and Wordsworth and applying those stories to their own stories? How different is it from knowing the universal expectations of language and communication and using them to effectively articulate our original thoughts, to create greater and stronger connections between one another?

To me, I don’t see much of a difference. Thank you, Alex Bellos, for reminding me of that. ♥

Reassembling Arts One: Hobbes’ The Leviathan

Posted on by under Books, UBC

I almost feel like I don’t need to write a post about The Leviathan because Crawford has threaded it through Arts One from beginning to end–if there was a week in which Hobbes wasn’t mentioned…

… nope. There were no such weeks. Regardless, I’m going to write about it because it’s probably one of my favorite texts, and it’s definitely Crawford’s, so I’m sure writing knowledgeably about it on the exam will score some kind of brownie points.

Hobbes and Plato–despite their radically different philosophies on the nature of man–both use this dialectic method of argument. (e.g., that is true, so this must be true, and thus, this also is true, etc. etc.) However, I find Hobbes’ argument much more compelling. The numberphile in me is likely drawn to Hobbes’ similar love of geometry (another resemblance between him and Plato) and its application to the other thing I love, which is the study of humans. Kind of. Hobbes is a political philosopher, but it still applies.

I think the tendency is for people to misunderstand Hobbes. For all I know, I have… but there’s so many things that can be misconstrued and have been (i.e., Rousseau saying that Hobbes believes that man is naturally evil -> false). I don’t think Hobbes says anything truly outrageous, though. Making the claim that without a covenant to a sovereign, individuals are “in a condition of war of everyone against everyone” and that they have a “perpetual and restless desire of power after power” does sound kind of pessimistic… but I believe Hobbes can be interpreted in a way that isn’t so pessimistic. (At any rate, that’s how I’ve interpreted him.)

Firstly, Hobbes points out that this condition of war arises because man is equal in nature. Thus, equality of nature creates equal hope of achieving ones’ means. Already, Hobbes makes the quite liberal argument that man thinks, hopes, and opines equally, and to my university undergraduate student ears, that sounds pretty reasonable. Pretty compelling. There’s also the argument that there is value in cooperation, and even man in the state of nature, I’m sure, can recognize this.

Secondly, Hobbes defines power as the means to attain ones’ ends or desires. Christina Hendricks pointed out during her lecture of Hobbes that this could be a variety of things, and power does not necessarily have to have the ruthless, ambitious, possibly war-like connotations we have attached to it. My classmates gave money, friends, and even bearing children, as examples.

Isn’t it amazing how different readings can completely change a text? I’m pretty sure what I just suggested is not how Jean-Jacques Rousseau read Hobbes. I wonder how different A Discourse on the Origins of Inequality would have been if Rousseau had read The Leviathan this way.

 

Reassembling Arts One: Homer’s The Odyssey

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Considering The Odyssey has its roots in the oral tradition, I probably should have listened to it the first time around. I purchased the audio book of the same edition we were reading for class, and the narrator happens to be Magneto, a.k.a Ian McKellen, but that’s not really important. I just think it’s cool.

Probably the biggest stand out thing to me, listening to Sir McKellen read The Odyssey out loud, is how societal the whole thing is. It’s made particularly obvious because the interactions between people and what those people value and admire are so different from how my peers and I interact and what we value and admire. “Societal” probably isn’t the best word to describe it–but the interconnected-ness of humans is so striking to me.

Audio books are usually just sound to fill the silence for me. I’m fairly sure I don’t know how to go to bed without listening to one anymore. (I’ve listened to the Anne series almost enough times to recite them from memory.) I obviously can’t do this with The Odyssey, since I’m reviewing for the exam, so I make a particular effort to truly listen. As a reader, I skim by a force of habit. Big blocks of text and overbearing descriptions tend to pass my eye. Listening to The Odyssey and trying to focus, however, brought to my attention things that had not initially occurred to me the first time I read.

During the first few books/chapters, Telemachus visits his missing father’s old friends. As is the ancient Greek tradition, hospitality is of paramount importance, and this becomes so much more obvious, listening to The Odyssey. Homer goes into great detail about the homes and feasts of Telemachus’s hosts, describing the grandeur down to every twinkle and shine, to every flavor and spice. It’s kind of like, what a person gives is so much more important than what he or she actually has.

That same logic applies to the value of story telling. Lies are not condemned in this world; Athena, goddess of wisdom, even admires Odysseus for his skillful lies–even if they are to her. What a person says is so much more important than what is actually the case.

This is likely me in this mindset because of preparing for the exam (which is tomorrow [!!!]), but there are so many layers of self-made identity for the characters in The Odyssey (and Margaret Atwood’s almost-modern retelling, The Penelopiad), but that self-made identity is also shaped and molded by outside influence. I think The Odyssey and The Penelopiad are probably among the best (literary) illustrators of dialogical identity from the reading list this year.

Faith, Love, and Kierkegaard

Posted on by under Books, Observations and Reflections, UBC

Perhaps one benefit to being on the bus so often is that it’s given me time to be in my own mind again. (It’s simultaneously one of the evils of such a long commute, but I won’t talk about that.) I had barely left home this morning when I was already thinking pretty deeply, reminiscing about two years ago… and thinking about Kierkegaard. I know I just blogged about him, but that might be why I made a connection to him this morning.

Kierkegaard expresses this admiration of Abraham because of the faith Abraham has, which Kierkegaard says is beyond understanding. During my second reading of Fear and Trembling, I thought that Abraham and his faith were paradoxical, incomprehensible, just as Kierkegaard says it is. Could I imagine giving up my son–who was promised to me after years of being denied him–and even delivering the blow myself, for the sake of faith in God? No. I couldn’t. Not that I had a particular yearning to imagine, let alone know, this feeling of Ultimate Faith.

However, I figure that love is a kind of faith, especially loving again. I wouldn’t change anything of early-middle teens, no matter how ugly it was (in retrospect). After all, I’ve come to realize that I was in my early middle teens and not nearly as wise as I deluded myself to think that I was (and I’m sure the trend continues into my late teens), but I haven’t forgotten that everything I felt and experienced was very real and very valid. I’m far enough away from my first boyfriend (emotionally, temporally, and–thank goodness–spatially) to almost think, “God, Jia, you were so petty, you were immature, you were so ridiculous”, but I don’t want to give my younger self that condescension. I was fifteen, sixteen. (And I also recognize that I have to give that same concession to him. So, you know, if by some chance you’re reading this, this is a kind of forgiveness–not that I want you back in my life, because hindsight does wonders for a person.)

I remember feeling so angry, so frustrated, and so confused. How could you promise someone certain things and then cheat on them? Is that not in the back of your mind? What outcome did he see from what he was doing? Could he even see an outcome? If not, how does anyone live like that? So without aim, without conscience?

These are questions I still haven’t answered. (“He’s an asshole” is the limited conclusion I have arrived at, and I’m completely fine with it.) I wrote down once that no one could ever promise me what I wanted them to promise me. At the time, I felt like those kinds of promises were meaningless. Nobody knew how they would feel about commitments until they were at the middle or end of “the long run”. I remember being terrified of that prospect. I’ve always been a scheduler, a planner, and the idea that I could not be able to trust a person to stay in my long-term plan was so frustrating.

And yet, here I am, having faith in the long term, and it doesn’t scare me like it did at the time. Despite everything I said nearly two years ago now, I’m not afraid of being committed. I don’t think I could be, to be honest. It’s just in my wiring to want and have a partner like Nathan. I was so sure, even when Nate and I were first getting to know each other, that I wouldn’t want to stay with him for a few months, let alone for a full year… but this is my faith, and I am happy in this infinite resignation and this inexplicable faith. Being with Nathan is my incomprehensible faith. How could I believe in the long term? I don’t know, really, but I don’t think Abraham knew either. Even if he did know, Kierkegaard makes the claim that he couldn’t explain to anyone his faith, and that that is what makes it faith. And I think I can understand that now, on a personal level.

Reassembling Arts One: Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling

Posted on by under Books, UBC

As part of my review for my final, I’ve decided to blog about some of the texts I felt I never fully understood (*cough* or read *cough*) throughout the year with Arts One so that I can at least be a little prepared if I have to identify a quote during the exam.

First on my list is Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard, read along with the Book of Genesis, but I haven’t finished rereading that one. So first thing’s first.

The first time around, I had difficulty fully comprehending Kierkegaard, and I still obviously don’t fully comprehend it. Kierkegaard and I are better friends now, though. A lot of his argumentation seemed very stream-of-consciousness at the first time I read it, thus I had a hard time connecting ideas together and relating it to “the big picture”, but rereading the text has helped me appreciate the ideas better.

Something that didn’t quite occur to me the first time around was the implication that Kierkegaard was making on faith. Growing up in a very Catholic Filipino family and attending an all-girls Catholic school for five years, faith becomes something of the every day. Say your prayers–“God will provide”, even if not in the way that you expect. I agree with Kierkegaard, however, that faith isn’t something of the every day. It is beyond all logic, paradoxical in its premise and in its execution because of the universal.

I think Kierkegaard’s endeavor isn’t something that I engaged myself in completely the first time I read his book. I didn’t grasp how engaging in faith was engaging in something incomprehensible, and I definitely didn’t find myself admiring Abraham the same way that Kierkegaard does, but I’m beginning to see it now.

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