Welcome to Day 8 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. What could immerse the reader better in the story world and give a clearer view of it than a narrator from within that world? That narrator isn’t necessarily a person; it can be an inanimate object, and we see this abundantly in picture […]
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Welcome to Day 7 of 40 craft lessons. One of the most popular pieces of writing advice is “raise the stakes.” And one of the most misunderstood ones! For me, that advice went in one ear and out the other. Stakes are for adult thrillers, right? I don’t write in that genre. So why would
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Welcome to Day 6 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. Not all main characters change, positively or negatively. What if a character doesn’t change, yet changes the world outside? That’s a flat-arc character. The word “flat” suggests constancy, which is partly correct: the character stays constant, but the world around them changes. Annabelle,
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Welcome to Day 5 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. Many terms in storytelling are confusing. Luckily, “character arc” is one of the clearer ones. Throughout a story, either the main character changes (dynamic arc) or the main character changes the world (flat arc). In both cases, the story revolves around that change.
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Welcome to Day 4 of 40 craft lessons. For a long time, animal characters have dominated children’s books. In recent years, human main characters have become more common. So, when is it still better to use animal characters? It’s tempting to choose animals simply because they’re cute. But cuteness alone isn’t enough to make a
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Welcome to Day 3 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. A new male teacher with tattoos. Does he sound strange to you? Well, your reaction isn’t the point here. Mr. Mendoza might not seem unsettling to you, but to Xavier, the main character of My Teacher Has Tattoos, he is. In Xavier’s understanding,
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Welcome to Day 2 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. Do you know what is more complicated than writing a book? Writing the first line! The first line is the gateway to the story’s world. It shouldn’t be banal or overly strange, nor should it be too slow, too rushed, or forced. Most
Welcome to day 1 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books. All well-crafted stories share one essential element. Whether it’s 32 pages or 300, readers keep turning the page because of it. In Monster Post, a beast finds a delicious-looking dinner: a child. The beast writes to his monster friends, inviting them to a
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Not long ago, in the stories, the narrator was all-knowing, neutral, god-like, omniscient. The narrator freely observed the story’s world from above, reported all actions to the reader, and moved seamlessly from one character’s head to another, sharing their thoughts. For example, Only the omniscient narrator can tell the
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“Hook the reader’s attention as early as you can.” You’ve probably heard this piece of writing advice a gazillion times. But how often does it actually work? Especially in picture book biographies? I became curious. My Study I read only the first two spreads of seventy traditionally published
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I will write here later
I read this book merely because of its title. My reasoning was that when an author is so careful with the title, the story will most likely be good. And it was not good, but brilliant.
Seven resin collectors
The story happens in a small, impoverished fictional village called Dukuh Paruk in the middle of Java Island. The main character, the 14-year-old Rasus, is in love with an 11-year-old girl, Srintil, whose grandfather believes she has a talent for Ronggeng—the Javanese dance. Moreover, in Rasus’s imagination, the girl is a replacement for Rasus’s mother, whom he had lost in childhood. A Ronggeng dancer isn’t a simple entertainer. The dancer is considered a sacred vessel for the village’s ancestral spirit and is expected to be available to the men of the village! I am not sure if it is comparable to the “sacred prostitute” in the temples that we read in the ancient Sumerian stories.
I read the first book in the trilogy in German—Die Tänzerin von Dukuh Paruk. Sadly, the other two volumes aren’t available to buy. In English, the trilogy is published in one volume with the title “The Dancer”.
The central conflict of the story is that Rasus has to emotionally put up with the tradition that everyone in his village believes in or benefits from. Rasus grows out of this calamity; he criticizes his village and its culture. In a nutshell, the story is the classic archetype: a boy becomes a man.
Tohari’s writing voice brings this archetype to life, especially his descriptions of nature and animals, which immerse me in the atmosphere of a Javanese village. The main theme of the story is the battle between tradition and humanity. In spite of the dire atmosphere in the story, it is very optimistic. Poverty and tradition cannot kill the humanity in Rasus.