Exploring Genres - Picture Books & Chapter Books

by Penny Reeve

Picture books and middle grade – invitations to the world!

I was in conversation with my daughter the other day and, as is fairly common at our place, the
conversation turned to books, children’s books in particular. She related how, upon sharing her
excitement at discovering the children’s books section of her university library, none of her young adult friends understood her enthusiasm.

‘They don’t understand,’ she commented. ‘They think, just because they’re grown up now, they should leave children’s books behind. They don’t realise some of the best books written are children’s books.’

Of course, I agreed. I’m a children’s book writer!

But, feelings of successful parenting aside, I do believe she has a point. Somehow our society has decided that children’s books, picture books and middle grade novels and the like are simple. But I’d encourage you to go browsing, next time you’re in a library or a bookshop, and take a closer look.

Children’s picture books and novels can be fun, silly, hilarious, rebellious, challenging, heart breaking, tear jerking, thought provoking and altogether beautiful in a way that no other genre can imitate. AND they have the incredible ability to do all of this, frequently at multiple levels (so each reader – despite their age and experience – can connect with the text in their own way).

So what exactly are the features of the genre that allow for such depth and, in my opinion, treasure worthy pieces?

Picture books

A picture book is a book in which illustrations carry a significant (if not majority) role communicating a story. A picture book cannot exist without it’s artwork, but some can exist without text.

The conventions of writing a picture book are very strict and they are known, for good reason, to be some of the hardest pieces of writing to pull off. Here’s why:

- A picture book needs to fit within 32 pages (and this includes the title page and imprint pages). So it’s typically 14-15 page spreads.

- Picture books are typically only 600 words long. (So that’s the WHOLE story in 600 words, or less if possible)

- The text of a picture book must be written in a way that allows an illustrator to extend, enhance and fulfil the storytelling.

- Many times illustrators and authors never meet, so the text must be as perfect as possible, often richly poetic (though not necessarily rhyming) with absolutely NO wasted words.

It is this mysterious interplay between words and pictures in great picture books that is the wonderful strength of the picture book genre.

Some highlights in the genre:

Check out the illustrations of Jesus as a child in Mighty Mighty King (Penny Morrison and Lisa Flanagan)

Notice the powerful role of illustrations in When I See Grandma (Debra Tidball and Leigh Hedstrom)

See the gentle communication of emotion and personality in Same (Katrina Roe and Jemima Trappell)

Children’s novels

Children’s novels are another genre that’s worth dipping into for us ‘grown ups’ but also for sharing with kids. 

From a literacy training perspective, they bridge the space between picture books and young adult novels. Whereas picture books assume an adult reader and child listener, children’s novels assume a child will, at some point, approach the book alone. This inevitably creates child friendly structure for the book in terms of:

- Word count. At the lower end of the scale are ‘Chapter Books’, these are a child reader’s first foray into the novel genre and word counts can be as low as 1000. The upper level nudges closer to 40 000 words for what is considered ‘Middle Grade’.

- Chapter length. This can vary, but is usually kept shorter than YA to encourage a fluid, realistic reading experience for young readers.

- Child protagonists are usually at a similar age to their intended reader.

- Plot complications, characterisation and description. Although these must be heavily worked by the author to make for authentic writing, they are communicated sparsely and with precision. Young readers aren’t going to tolerate long descriptive passages of the view from the cliff top, and yet (especially if that cliff top is important to the theme/setting/plot) they need to know what it looks and feels like. So a light touch is required.

- Illustrations. Many children’s novels include illustrations of some sort. The occasional black line illustration etc. The longer the novel, the smaller a role such illustrations play.

Some highlights in the genre:

The Grand Genius Summer of Henry Hoobler (Lisa Shanahan) is a beautifully written story of friendship, bike riding, courage and family.

My Tania Abbey novels tackle issues of faith, friendship and responding to poverty amid a setting of everyday life.

Kelsey and the Quest of the Porcelain Doll (Rosanne Hawke) is a lovely adventure story for young readers and considers topics such as belonging and learning about different cultures.

Author bio:

Penny Reeve is the Australian author of more than 20 books for children, including the CALEB Children’s Category award winning Madison picture books. She writes to empower children to engage with - and respond to - the world around them. Her most recently published books are Camp Max (a children’s novel for 6-10 year olds) and Out of the Cages (a YA novel about human trafficking). You can learn more about Penny and her books by visiting her websites:

www.pennyreeve.com and www.pennyjaye.com

Exploring Genre - Young Adult

by Cecily Anne Paterson

Want to start an argument? Ask someone in publishing to define ‘YA’. Don’t know anyone in publishing, but you’re still curious? Just enquire of Dr Google, who’ll spit you back more opinions about what YA is and what it means, than you’ll ever have time to get through.

I have an apparently controversial task ahead of me.

What is YA?

So what is YA? It’s the short-hand term for ‘Young Adult’ books and stories. As to who those ‘young adults’ are exactly, well, that’s anyone’s guess.

It’s safe enough to say that a YA book will feature a teenage protagonist who faces a challenge, learns and grows.

Here’s where it gets tricky: if the character is 12-14 years of age, some people will say it’s a ‘teen book’. They’d argue that a young adult is 14+, and I can understand their reasoning. A kid of 13 is dealing with different life issues than a young person of 16, and that young person is a different creature again in comparison to an 18 or 19-year old.

So within YA, perhaps we have three categories: teen, featuring characters aged 12-14, YA, with a character who is 14-17, and New Adult, following a protagonist who is aged 18-21.

What are YA books about?

Just like books for younger children deal with different issues according to age, you’ll find a huge variety of subject matter – and standards of what’s acceptable - within the YA genre. While you might not find sex, drug and alcohol use or swearing in a book at the younger end of the spectrum (they have to get past parents and librarians after all), you’ll almost certainly find some or all of it as you head up to the New Adult end.

You’ll find in current YA titles a tendency to feature characters from diverse backgrounds, religions and cultures. YA loves to tell tales of ‘outliers’, or the people who don’t fit in. Words like ‘searingly honest’, ‘an unflinching look at life’ and 'achingly funny' sell YA books. They can be brutally honest, sizzlingly harsh, and unbearably beautiful.

Years ago, YA books were often known as ‘coming of age’ stories. A young person can ‘come of age’ whenever they understand themselves or something in their world differently, whenever they cross a threshold or have a significant ‘first time’ experience, and whenever they move out and away from what has constituted safety in their life.

Because we’re dealing with young people, YA titles have all the feels, and lots of them.

My mother once read my (younger) YA title, Invisible, and said, “Well, there was plenty of teenage angst in it.”

“That’s the point,” I said.

The richness of working with a teenage protagonist is that they do have all that angst, and passion, and energy, and terror, and bliss, and wonder. Life is tough, and the first time you deal with it as a young person, you haven’t learned the wisdom older people use to discern truth from lies, shield yourself from unnecessary hurt, or set limits. The passion and intensity of young people is what makes them such wonderful characters.

Additionally, seeing the world through the eyes of a young person means that a YA writer can comment on society in unique ways. If Suzanne Collins had told the story of Katniss’ mother, The Hunger Games would have been an entirely different story. Instead, readers follow angry, idealistic Katniss into the dystopia of the Districts and its lavish Capitol, gaining with her a thirst for justice and peace, and a longing for change. 

It’s no coincidence that some of the best dystopian literature is found in the YA genre: it’s young people who have the passion and energy to make the world better.

Some Christian YA books I've enjoyed

I'd recommend Penny Jaye's Out of the Cages.
I'd also recommend Roseanne Hawke's books.
And Claire Zorn is a multi-award winning writer who is also a Christian.

Who reads YA?

Obviously you’d expect that teenagers would be keen to read books featuring characters of their own age, and you’d be right. But—and this has been a surprising development over the last 25 years— it’s not just young people. Adults are keen readers of YA and New Adult books.

In fact, adult readers make up 55 per cent of the YA audience, for which we have to thank Harry Potter. Before JK Rowling’s ascendency it might have been shameful to be seen reading a ‘kids’ book’ but a YA book in a grown-up’s hand is no longer notable.

Adults read YA because they still relate to the characters, because they still appreciate a challenge, and because a good, well-told story is still a good well-told story, no matter how old the protagonist is.

What about you? Do you read or write Young Adult or New Adult books? Which ones have you enjoyed reading or would recommend and why?

---

Cecily Paterson writes ‘brave-heart’ stories for girls aged 10-14, which puts her books at the very youngest end of the YA spectrum. Her novel, Charlie Franks is A-OK won the CALEB Prize in 2017. Find her at www.cecilypaterson.com

Exploring Genre - Crime Mystery

by Donna Fletcher Crow

The Mystery of Writing Mysteries—

Or Why Would an Author Kill Her Characters?

Saint Cuthbert made me do it.

I started out as a romance writer. I wrote wonderful, dreamy stories, historical or contemporary, set in lush locations that I loved researching and then living in in my mind. (Settings have always been one of the most important story elements to me.) I published several books and even won a few awards. Then one day I realized I couldn’t read another romance.

If you can’t read them, you can’t write them. So I concentrated on my lifetime love of English history and wrote a number of historical novels, including my Arthurian epic Glastonbury, The Novel of Christian England, still my best-known work.

Then I met Saint Cuthbert. Not in any mystical sense, but the way I meet most of my characters: researching another project. At Durham Cathedral I heard the story of this soldier-turned-monk who transformed the north of England by his holiness. I knew I wanted to tell his story. But what could I do with a character whose claim to fame was his sanctity?

My greatest challenge in writing had always been plotting. My family knew my struggles so well that when my writing flagged, my young daughter would say, “Mama, you don’t have enough conflict.” I seldom did. I had once mentioned my struggle to an editor who advised, “You need to read thrillers.” He promptly sent me a box of mystery novels he edited. I was hooked.

My love of history took me back to the Golden Age. I devoured Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham and, of course, Agatha Christie. I saw that mystery writing incorporated not only the rich backgrounds and alive characters that I loved, but also kept me involved with that all-important strong story question that must be developed early in the story and solved at the end.

That was it—what I needed for Saint Cuthbert was a story question strong enough to keep the pages turning. I needed to involve my reader with strong characters in interesting settings so they would care enough about what was happening to be willing to read about an ancient saint whose beliefs are still valid for our day and can transform our world as they did his own.

The Monastery Murders were born. I had understood the story question idea from the early days of my writing—I had some great teachers, especially Lee Roddy. But I had never applied the story question principle with blood before. Let’s face it—nothing keeps the pages turning like a dead body.

In this third permutation of my writing career I author three mystery series: The Lord Danvers Investigates, Victorian true-crime mysteries; The Elizabeth and Richard Literary Suspense series; and The Monastery Murders. In each of these I try to develop the rich backgrounds, vital characters and historical elements that have always driven my writing, but now I also concentrate on keeping the story question moving forward to what I hope will be a satisfyingly surprising conclusion.

Once I plant my story question—which may or may not be an explicit query followed by a question mark, but must raise a question in the reader’s mind—I then develop my chapters by focusing on small elements of the over-arching question. A clue or red herring leads my sleuths (in my books, all amateurs) to explorations, evaluations and then a new question to be explored in the next chapter. This is a mystery-writing application of the classic scene and sequel structure which I discovered many years ago in the classic Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain. I highly recommend it—there’s nothing better for understanding the bones of fiction writing.

This question and answer method, which I first applied to A Very Private Grave, Saint Cuthbert’s story,  has carried me through the writing of  fourteen more mystery novels. I’ve never been bored for a minute—and I hope my readers haven’t either.

Donna Fletcher Crow is passionate about English history and loves telling the stories of the men and women who have shaped the world we live in. She is the author of some 50 books--all available on her website along with pictures from her research trips--something else she is passionate about. Her newest release is A Lethal Spectre, Lord Danvers Investigates 

Exploring Genre - Supernatural Fiction (A Cross-over post with CWD)

By Ian Acheson

This year, the cross posts between Christian Writers Downunder and Australasian Christian Writers are focusing on genre. So far, we’ve had posts on meeting genre expectations, in Space Opera and Superheroes, Portal Fantasy and Secondary World Fantasy, Poetry, Free Verse and Verse Novels , Regency and Historical Romance and Rural and Medical Romance 

Today I’m looking at the Supernatural Fiction sub-genre and will also reference Speculative Fiction together and Paranormal Fiction.

Supernatural fiction. What is it you ask? Let’s look at a few definitions. 

It is often included in the “speculative” catchall that features in many places, whether it is award programs (eg, ACFW) to certain publishers that focus entirely on novels that “explore the boundaries of the imagination” to borrow from Marcher Lord Press now rebranded Enclave Publishing. We even have a publisher down under in New Zealand that specialises in such fiction: Grace Bridges’ Splashdown Books. 

It’s pleasing to know that the world’s largest Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, has it’s own supernatural fiction category. It is the home of some of the biggest authors of the genre: Ted Dekker, Jim Rubart and Erin Healy to name just three, all of whom happen to be particular favorities of mine.

Back to the definition. In its most basic form it is simply that the story contains elements that are outside the laws of the physical world. The story typically involves a power that goes beyond natural forces and is attributed to a god or deity. The ghost story is the archetypal supernatural story. However, some commentators would treat a ghost story as “paranormal fiction.” There’s a big overlap in all these genres and sub-genres of weirdness. Angels and demons fit in the supernatural while vampires, werewolves, zombies are probably classified as paranormal. Paranormal would also include extraterrestrial life (think ET, Independence Day), UFOs, etc.

In the past decade or so we’ve seen an explosion in secular artforms showcasing all this weirdness. Whether it’s the Twilight novels and movies to The Walking Dead graphic novels and TV series plus the many spin-offs where other worlds are portrayed that typically collide with our physical world in the shape of creatures including vampires, fairies, werewolves, zombies and such like.

Increasingly we’re finding Christian authors are exploring some of these boundaries with an uptake in horror novels and even the undead. I don’t read such novels but having spoken to readers who do, they have indicated these stories explore how God triumphs over Satan in his various evil guises.

Supernatural Faith

Our faith is a supernatural one. We believe in God who exists outside of our physical world. The Bible is a supernatural book and we’re participants in a spiritual war whether we like it or not. There is another world that exists all around us. In fact, it continually intersects with what we experience with our five senses. It is in the intersection where supernatural fiction typically resides. 

I think we’d all be familiar with Frank Peretti’s Darkness duo of novels (“This Present Darkness” and “Piercing the Darkness”) that had such an influence over our generation of Christian readers. Certainly there were other novels before Peretti that portrayed supernatural themes but these two are famous for their demonstration of a parallel world of angels and demons being influenced and influencing what occurs in the physical world.

When I chat with readers who are passionate about such novels, I find three recurring themes.

1. An interest in the unfamiliar

This is perhaps a key difference to romance novels where certain underlying central themes can be familiar to the reader. Spiritual warfare, a particular personal area of interest, is often not something we hear or read much about. It’s rarely a topic of discussion around the dinner table, catch up with friends nor is it often preached about in some churches.

2. Triumph over evil

Most supernatural novels will feature a strong theme of good versus evil. This can take many forms whether it’s the direct influence of a demon on a human, or villains allowing their fleshly desires to guide their actions. In evil being defeated, the reader is able to witness an expression of God’s incredible love for His creation.

3. Strengthens their faith

This third element can be applied to any genre where we see faithfulness, forgiveness, grace or any number of God’s attributes on display. We close the book with hope in our heart having been reminded of God’s awesomeness.

Writing Christian fiction that’s not preachy is especially challenging. One of the advantages I believe speculative fiction has over other genres is that it is ‘easier’ to introduce a Christian theme by using an otherworldly character, for example, an angel or demon, or a human with a special supernatural gift, or a story that is set on a completely different world/realm/time continuum.

Realm Makers Conference 

Just as the secular world has its Comic Con gigs a group of Christian authors created Realm Makers a few years ago and now host an annual conference. It was recently held in Reno in late July and I understand over 200 people attended to listen to the likes of Dekker, Rubart, Mary Weber and David Farland to name just a few. I’m hoping to get to it next year. 

Recent examples of Supernatural Fiction

I’m always looking for good supernatural and speculation fiction. Craig Parshall’s new Trevor Black Series is a good one that combines the grittiness of crime drama with supernatural suspense. 

I’m a big fan of the Harbinger novella series. It’s now finished having produced 20 novellas written by 5 authors: Bill Myers, Peretti, Angie Hunt, Alton Gansky and Jeff Gerke. Clever story, form of creation and distribution. We’ll see more of this multi-author style of story in the years to come.

If you haven’t sampled any supernatural fiction recently or ever may I encourage you to put a toe in the water. Perhaps start with one of the Darkness novels, which I mentioned above, or one of Jim Rubart’s. Jim’s latest, The Long Journey to Jake Palmer, is superb and was my favourite novel of 2016. You won’t be disappointed and who knows, you may become a convert.

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Angelguard was recognised with the 2014 Selah Award for Speculative Fiction.You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter

Exploring Genres - Regency and Historical Romance

by Carolyn Miller

This year, the cross posts between Christian Writers Downunder and Australasian Christian Writers are focusing on genre. So far this year we’ve had posts on meeting genre expectations, the science fiction subgenres of Space Opera and Superheroes, Portal Fantasy and Secondary World Fantasy, Poetry, Free Verse and Verse Novels. I’ve been asked to write about Regency Romance, and its place within the Historical Romance genre.

To be honest, history was never really my thing in school. I always thought it a little (okay, quite) boring, and irrelevant for current day life. That was until I discovered historical romance – especially Regency romance.

Historical Romance  

The classic definition of ‘historical romance’ is not one about fiction set in the past that deals with love, but rather, in Walter Scott’s words, “a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents.” Novels (or films) like Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, even Wolf Hall, may be considered historical romances, even though they may not have a strong emphasis on the romantic relationship between the characters.

Nowadays, most of us associate historical romance with a story set in the past (pre-WWII) that focuses on the developing attraction between two main characters, with an emotionally satisfying, optimistic ending. 

Historical romance genres span time periods from the Ancient World, Medieval and Elizabethan age, through to Colonial US and Western time periods. A number of Australian Christian authors who write historical romances include Meredith Resce (colonial & other Australian time settings), Rita Stella Galieh (Victorian era), Mary Hawkins (colonial Australia), Elizabeth Ellen Carter (various eras, for the secular market), Dorothy Adamek (pioneer Australia), Carol Preston (convict era to WWI), amongst others.

Regency Romance 

Regency romance is a subgenre of historical romance, being defined as novels set between the years 1811-1820, when the Prince Regent, (later George IV) ruled England in place of his ill father. Although Jane Austen’s novels were published in this time period they were set a few years prior, so there are questions as to whether they truly can be considered Regency fiction.

History of Regency 

 Georgette Heyer, a prolific English writer of the 1920s-1960s, modelled her fiction on Jane Austen’s works, and used a great deal of period details to give a sense of authenticity to her works. This included basing plots around real events, such as the Napoleonic Wars, the precise descriptions of clothing and furniture, the use of Regency-era ‘cant’ (slang, such as “all the crack” to describe something very fashionable, or “bluestocking” to describe an academic female) all to aid her readers’ understanding an unfamiliar time period. Her commitment to research was such that she had whole rooms devoted to research materials – this was pre-internet days. It even saw her purchase a letter written by the Duke of Wellington, just so she could emulate his style of address. Not for nothing is she considered to have invented the Regency romance genre, and spawned so many imitators, Barbara Cartland being one.

Elements Found in Regency 

In addition to period details and the romance genre’s expectations of a HEA (happily ever after), there are a number of other elements often found in Regency fiction:

·       References to the ton (British high society, consisting of the aristocracy and fashionably wealthy)   

·       Portrayals of social activities as carriage rides, morning visits (often paid in the afternoon), dinners, plays, operas, assemblies, balls, considered usual for the social season, which occurred between January and June, when Parliament was in session.

·       Mention of sporting activities engaged in by young gentlemen of the period, such as riding, driving, boxing, fencing, hunting, shooting, etc.

·       Social class differences

·       Marriages of convenience: marriage based on love was unlikely for most women, their main concern to acquire a steady and sufficient income for the woman and her family

·       False engagements, and mistaken identity, deliberate or otherwise

·       Mystery or farce elements in the storyline

Traditional Regency romance, with an emphasis on the primary romance plot, usually has very detailed historical details and tries to emulate the language of the period – for their notoriously picky readers. J  Regency historical romance is considered slightly different, and may have more modern characterisations, and a degree of sensuality (ie bodice rippers) not in keeping with Regency values.

Christian Regency

Christian Regency romance fiction really took off in the early 2000s with Lori Wick’s ‘English Garden’ series. More contemporary Christian Regency authors (they’re mostly US) include Julie Klassen, Sarah Ladd, Kristi Ann Hunter – and yours truly, waving the flag for Australasia! J In addition to the usual Regency elements we also see the depiction of the hero and heroine’s faith, with common themes including forgiveness, commitment and social injustice, and the ‘heat’ of secular novels restricted to a chaste touch of the hand or (gasp!) a kiss.

Reading Regency 

Regency romance has many avid admirers – some of whom may have been persuaded to read by Jane Austen films and a certain Colin Firth. Reading such novels can be a great way to gain a little more understanding about a time in English history that witnessed such things as the Napoleonic Wars, the advent of industrialisation and subsequent social upheaval, adventure and exploration and excess. Couple that with observing the relationship trials – and the fantasy element of grand houses and handsome, tilted heroes – and there can be a lot to enjoy and appreciate about Regency romances.

Carolyn Miller lives in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and four children. Together with her husband she has co-pastored a church for ten years, written songs and headed music ministry, and worked as a high school English and Learning and Support teacher.

A longtime lover of romance, especially that of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer’s Regency era, Carolyn holds a BA in English Literature, and loves drawing readers into fictional worlds that show the truth of God’s grace in our lives.

Carolyn is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Australasian Christian Writers and Omega Christian Writers and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. Her debut Regency novel ‘The Elusive Miss Ellison’ released in February 2017, and her second ‘The Captivating Lady Charlotte’ released in June from Kregel Publications. Both are available from Amazon.com.au, Koorong, Book Depository & other sites.

Connect with her at www.carolynmillerauthor.com and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter, and follow via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Writing different genres By Susan Page Davis

Today we welcome Susan Page Davis to our blog. Susan writes several different genres and is blogging about this for us today. 

From the time I started writing fiction, I’ve written in several different genres. I love variety, and writing different kinds of stories keeps me from getting bored and, I like to think, keeps my writing from getting stale.

The first full-length book I ever finished was romantic suspense, but my first book ever published was a historical romance. I’ve continued to write in both genres, but I have also published two children’s chapter books, a couple dozen cozy mysteries, and a few plain ol’ romance novels.

What am I working on now? A historical romance novella, a cozy mystery, and a romantic suspense novel in my Maine Justice series.

Working on several books at once doesn’t bother me, unless they are somewhat alike. For instance, if I’m working on a novel set in 1860 and a novella set in 1880, I might have moments where I get confused as to what technology and services were available at that time. Did this area have railroads yet? Telegraph? A county courthouse?

As to the projects I’m working on now, the historical novella is set in Texas in 1886. The other two are contemporary, so no problems there.

But the characters for my suspense novel—cops and their families, suspects, friends, and crime victims—do speak, act, and think differently from the modern, middle-aged women who own the tearoom in the cozy mystery series. The tearoom ladies are much more genteel than the cops, much more upbeat, and always trying to make their friends and customers feel loved, or at least valued.

My cops, on the other hand, see a lot of rough happenings, and sometimes they get depressed. Sometimes they argue and throw things. Sometimes they break the rules and give their bosses cause to discipline them.

So, for each genre I have to have a distinct “voice,” which amounts to attitude. My Texas Ranger is a little folksy, a little funny, but determined to get his man. My tearoom owners are gentle and compassionate, but good at exposing lies and crimes. My Maine Justice cops are tough, but each has a tender side that is only seen by those who know them well.

Do you see a particular attitude or mood running through books of your favorite genre, even when they are written by different authors?
               

Short bio:

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than seventy published novels. A Maine native, she now lives in the state of Kentucky in the USA. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com , where you can see all her books, sign up for her occasional newsletter, and read a short story on her romance page. Her newest books are Found Art (romantic suspense) and My Heart Belongs in the Superstition Mountains (western historical romance).

Genre - Exploring Poetry

by Valerie Volk

I grew up with a father whose simple philosophy was expressed (often!) in verse quotations:

Life is mainly froth and bubble;

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another’s trouble,

Courage in your own.

From Adam Lindsay Gordon to Longfellow:

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”

These were my father’s creeds  - but he would never have classified himself as a lover of poetry. How intriguing that lines of verse expressed best the values that were so important to him!

Why does the word ‘poetry’ set up barriers?

Two preliminary thoughts spring immediately to my mind, and they are both significant. One is the poignant moment when I stood in an Adelaide bookstore and watched people pick up my just-released verse novel Passion Play – only to put it down immediately saying “Oh, it’s poetry ...”

The second, equally sad, comes in that very popular 1989 film, Dead Poets Society,  where before the advent of the charismatic Mr Keating, a poetry lesson consists of the dreary reading aloud of chapter one of a ponderous tome on the topic “What is poetry?”

Perhaps this second thought explains the first. Too many schoolrooms where the study of poetry has been a soulless dragging through besmirched classics with a relentless analysis of rhyme, rhythm, symbolism, similes and metaphors  -  and let’s not forget alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia – these have been the breeding ground for a general automatic response: “Poetry is hard work!”

But prose writing is relatively recent!

“Too hard’ is a sad reaction, because poetry has been throughout the centuries the instinctive response of people (not just that breed we call ‘poets’) to an experience that they wish to communicate as vividly as possible to others. It’s interesting to recall that novel writing, prose fiction, any of the non-poetic genres of today, are comparative newcomers on the scene, only a few centuries old, where poetry was the natural form of expression for thousands of years.

In ages before people could read and write, audiences in the great halls of castles, gatherings around camp fires, villagers welcoming travelling minstrels, fair ladies being wooed by optimistic troubadours, all were being entranced and entertained by poetry. What did it offer them?

Certainly, for the pre-literate ages the use of verse made communication much easier. The epic poems, the sagas of a heroic age, depended heavily on the devices and techniques that made the oral traditional tales easy to listen to and to remember. Rhyme and rhythm were important as an aid to understanding and literary devices such as assonance, with its repetition of vowel sounds, and alliteration, with its use of repeated consonants, were there not to be clever or ‘poetic’ but to get right into the hearer’s consciousness and memory. So still today works like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespeare’s plays are part of our literary heritage, all of them in verse.

So what does poetry offer us today?

Here we come to the crux of it: what really does poetry offer? It provides the opportunity to capture experiences, emotions, ideas in a more precise and meaningful way, for this is what poets of all ages have wanted to do: to communicate at the deepest level with readers in ways that make their words a shared experience, and one to remember. Poets want to open our eyes to see things in a new way, whether it’s Wordsworth standing on London Bridge on a fresh new morning, a sight so touching in its majesty, or Shelley, listening to a skylark, and marveling at its unpremeditated art, or Wilfred Owen, bringing home to us the horrors of World War One, with its returning soldiers bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags.

Difficult? No. The fact that poetry has been, traditionally, broken into lines seems to make casual viewers think that some special initiation into this art form is needed. Yet the line divisions in fact give us the chance to pause, hesitate, feel the emphasis on words in a way that allows them to carry special weight and power. Similarly, the language use in poetry is often richer and more flexible than that in everyday speech. Again, it heightens our responses. The potential of even standard devices, such as alliteration, is recognized in today’s advertising world – how many product jingles depend on alliteration! Try watching commercial television with an ear to this, and you’ll swiftly see its value in making an impact.

We read poetry to be moved and challenged to see the world in new ways. When Hopkins writes The world is charged with the grandeur of God we catch our breath with the sudden shock of his words – and that’s exactly what he wants.

This one line actually crystallizes what I’m saying. Take that word ‘charged.’ In a single word it opens so many thoughts, from the sense of electric vitality and force with which God created the world to the responsibilities we are charged with as custodians of the earth. It would take prose several paragraphs at least to explore these ideas, but in the succinctness of poetry they are evoked with one word. That is poetry’s potential.

But what we are talking about with this term poetry anyway?

Let’s move away from the blanket definitions, like Coleridge’s famous ‘the best words in the best order.’ It’s not a genre in itself, but almost needs a series of discussions on the various types of poetic genres: epic poetry, narrative poetry, descriptive poetry, lyric poetry with odes and idylls, dramatic poetry and the dramatic monologue, didactic poetry with its focus on teaching a lesson, satirical and humorous verse, specific forms such villanelles, sestinas,  triolets, rondels, ballads and sonnets, foreign forms like haiku, tanka and cinquain. What about song lyrics or rap poems? Poets can write in strict rhymed forms with lines that follow a huge variety of patterns, or they can choose unrhymed forms such as blank verse or the even more open free verse. Or further still these days, prose poetry, where it is only the heightened language use and phrasing that makes the classification ‘poetry’ possible.

Why do I write poetry?

I write poetry because I want to share as intensely as possible a scene, a person, an idea, that has been important to me, and I try to communicate this by calling on all that poetry makes possible. I try very hard to overcome the threatening reputation this genre so unfairly has acquired.

What makes me happy is when someone reads my work and says: “I’ve never read poetry, but you know, I could understand that. It really didn’t seem like poetry.”

I like to think my Dad would have felt the same. And I’m intrigued by the realization that many of the important ethical lessons he taught me I recall easily because they are expressed in poetry.

This blogpost was also published on Christian Writers Downunder 

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Meet Valerie Volk:

As a seven-year-old I wrote embarrassingly bad fairy stories. Now, many decades later, I’m still writing  ... but I hope there’s been improvement. In between, there have been years as an academic, a researcher and an education program director in three Australian states –  but at last I’m a full-time writer with awards for both poems and short stories, which are to be found in journals, anthologies and magazines.

My first published collection, In Due Season, won the national Omega Writers CALEB Poetry Prize in 2010. The following year produced A Promise of Peaches, a verse novel, (Ginninderra Press), while my third book, Even Grimmer Tales, (Interactive Publications) is a dark and wickedly funny modern take on Grimms Tales, but, as the sub-title warns, definitely ‘not for the faint-hearted.’ My fourth book, Passion Play, an extended verse novel (Wakefield Press), is a modern reincarnation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with the medieval pilgrims replaced by twenty-first century characters travelling to the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau. Next came two shorter collections of verse, Flowers & Forebears and Indochina Days, while 2015 brought a Biblical fiction prose work, Bystanders, (Wakefield Press) and 2017 will launch Of Llamas and Piranhas, South American poems.

My main interests, apart from writing, are reading (especially crime fiction), film and theatre going, music, and food - both cooking and (as a lover of good restaurants) eating. I’m an enthusiastic traveller, especially overseas, but my focus is always the writer’s first question: What if ...?

Web link:    www.valerievolk.com.au