When a young location scout from Hollywood dashes into a local Hawaiian bar, she bites off a little more than she can chew. Set in Hawaii with a hint of ancient mythology, Tourists is a companion story to the Niuhi Shark Saga and is intended for adults. Like the woman in the story, there’s no long-term commitment here. Tourists is a quick coffee break and dessert read.
Available in eBook from Amazon.
Had a blast yesterday at BYU with the Kid Authors Camp kids. An amazingly smart, talented, and fearless group of writers. They asked all the tough questions about how contracts work, movie rights, and how they can publish their work when they’re ready, like in maybe another hour or so when they finish their last chapter. These kids are going places!
I don’t believe in writer’s block, even though I’ve been stalled out on book three in the Niuhi Shark Saga for several months now. It’s not that I can’t write—I’ve continued to write and even publish other works—it’s that I haven’t wanted to work on the series.
It’s not block, it’s apathy.
Part of the apathy comes from the publisher wanting to wrap it up as a trilogy instead of a five book series—oh, but Lehua, we’d like you to keep the third book’s ending open enough that if sales warrant it, there’s the option to write books four and five. In the meantime, we’d like to see something else. I could go on ad nauseam about the challenges of working with an understaffed, underfunded new publishing house, but if you’re a writer, you’ve heard it all before.
So five into three. Really three into one, since the first two are already published. No matter how you do the math, it doesn’t fit.
I thought about simply writing book three the way I originally envisioned it and then self-publishing four and five—heck, I’d give them away to anyone who asked.
But a series with three nice books sitting on a shelf and two only available on the nearest eReader didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what would. Some days I even convinced myself that I didn’t care, the same way people convince themselves that a large Diet Coke cancels out the buttered popcorn and peanut M&Ms they consume at a movie.
For the past year, every time I sit down to write I have to do it around the three-ton shark sitting on my keyboard. Go back to starring in Shark Week shows, I’d think. Aren’t there some white-bellied tourists from Wisconsin you can haunt? Unlike bigger budgeted publishing houses, in my experience, small presses don’t bug you much about deadlines, particularly when they’re busy trying to hook bigger fish.
It was therefore easy, sorta, to ignore Jaws Junior and the tsunami wave of story hovering over my head. Easy, that is, until book two started percolating through the kid-lit jungle net and kids started sending me email.
Aunty Lehua!!!!! I can’t believe you ended it that way!!!!!! What happens next?!!!!!!!
Middle grade readers love exclamation points.
They also send major guilt-trip vibes.
Working as a content editor with other authors made me realize my real problem wasn’t finding a way to tie up all the loose ends. It was reconciling what made sense in a third book based on the first two. In my head I had too much story. But if Zader chooses to do something else…
Suddenly, a completely new and different shape for a third book began to emerge. I bounced ideas off published authors who had read One Boy, No Water and One Shark, No Swim, but had no preconceived ideas of where the story was heading. I then went to my ace in the hole—a few middle grade readers–and asked what they’d like to see in the last book. While radically different from my original ideas, the new book three made sense.
With a clearer vision in mind, I finally feel ready to write the last book of Zader’s Niuhi shark saga. The series will end, questions will be answered, and Zader’s journey will be worth it—both for him and the reader.
I hope.
Cue the theme from Jaws.
As the author of a series, I’m often asked by other writers about character development—specifically, how should characters change from one book to the next. I always say it all depends on whether your series is more like a fast-food burger or a chef’s table dining experience.
You know us Hawaiians; it’s all about the food.
When you walk into a burger joint, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Some series, particularly detective fiction like Robert Parker’s Spencer series, are structured like your basic grilled patty in a bun. First book to last, Spencer changes his underwear and not much else. A crime is committed. It gets solved. Some shooting, drinking, and bed-hopping happens in between. The order the books are read in doesn’t matter much more than having a bacon cheeseburger one day and a jalapeño ranch burger the next.
For burger-lovers, this consistency is a good thing. For authors making bank with a series, it’s awesome. With infinite combinations of new toppings and special sauces to season the plot, there’s no reason to mess with the character of the ground chuck. And with no over-arching storyline, the series never ends.
But no matter how juicy, few people crave burgers all day every day. Variety being the spice of life, it should be no surprise that some series are the literary equivalent of a multi-course chef’s table meal. When you sit at the chef’s table in a restaurant, you relinquish control over your dining experience to the chef who determines the pacing, ingredients, and presentation of each course. For readers, it’s about savoring each dish on the way to dessert.
Think of the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. In each book the wizardlings had adventures and obstacles, but there was a more important over-arching tale involving Voldermort and Harry that advanced until it was resolved at the end of the last book. Now imagine knowing from the beginning Dumbledor’s end game and Snape’s true character—you’d be eating dessert first and spoiling your appetite for all the delicious tension built in the previous six books.
Just as a chef considers the textures, flavors, and juxtapositions of each dish in his set menu, the author of a cohesive serial story forces characters to change and grow from book to book, ultimately piquing the reader’s hunger for the next course. In a burger book, character development is secondary to the plot. A juicy char-broiled book series is all about enjoying similar experiences with beloved characters over and over again.
Here’s another example.
The Niuhi Shark Saga is a multi-course luau complete with roasted pig, hula dancers, and cake. It’s one loooooong story broken into bite-sized MG/YA books.
Through the series Zader, the protagonist, changes from the odd kid who always has to be rescued to the kid who questions everything to the young man who determines for himself how he will live his life. In each book I have to consider where Zader is in terms of his eventual transformation and where the other characters are in relation to both Zader and their own conflicts and ambitions. It helps that many of my characters are going through adolescence, arguably the biggest transformative time in anyone’s life.
In book one, One Boy, No Water, Zader is hiding in the shadows. There’s a lot of symbolism about young, tender things growing in the protective safety of the reef. He has Uncle Kahana, Jay, and Char Siu to guide and support him, and he’s pretty comfortable being led. At the end, Zader recuses his brother from a paralyzing fear and himself from bullies. This triggers his predator nature, and it’s obvious he’s outgrown the idea of camouflage as safety.
In book two, One Shark, No Swim, Zader’s grown enough that he no longer accepts what he’s been told as fact. Uncle Kahana is unwilling to deal directly with the changes he sees in Zader, and that causes problems. Char Siu, Zader’s gal-pal, is starting to understand that there’s a big difference between boy-world and girl-world and she’s navigating deep water while the boys are still splashing in the shallows. Jay begins to get caught up in competitive surfing, leaving Zader alone on the sand. These conflicts and others finally drive Zader to listen only to himself and to make a choice no one expects.
In book three, tentatively titled One Fight, No Fist, there are consequences for Zader’s choices. He’s older, more secretive, and both less trusting and more protective of his family and friends. He’s bolder, more aggressive, and is ready to take the fight to his stalker. He’s so far from where he started, he’s almost a different person. Consequently, all of the other characters have to change and adjust to this new person—or better, don’t adjust—and the reader can watch the sparks fly.
The changes the Niuhi Shark Saga characters go through are really the storyline that ties the books together. Without character growth the series would be like The Simpsons tv show—Homer chasing one doughnut after another, hanging out at Moe’s, and never learning or suffering from the consequences of his adventures for more than 30 minutes.
Now there are a lot of doughnut lovers who crave that consistency. Go, Homer, go!
But if you’re in the mood for something different, try a little of my Niuhi Shark Saga lau lau and poi. But be sure to leave room for the killer pineapple-upside down cake. You won’t believe what happens next!
Excerpt from One Shark, No Swim available Sept. 21, 2013
Jay and I were putting the finishing touches on our awesomest project ever: a cardboard sled shaped from Hari’s tv box. It was huge. We were sure we’d break land speed records racing down grass hills. We might even catch air.
Char Siu pranced over the curb and struck a pose, hands on her hips and one shoe delicately balanced on its point. “What do you think?”
Jay didn’t glance up. “We’re busy, Char Siu.”
She thrust her lip out. “You never even looked.”
“You’re wearing your Mom’s old church shoes. Why? Did ‘Ilima eat one of your slippahs?” Jay yawned.
“I gotta practice, Jay. Lisa Ling told me all the girls wear heels at Ridgemont.”
Jay turned to me. “You ever see Lili wear heels to school?”
I shook my head. “No.” Our sister Lili was going to be a junior at Ridgemont next year.
“Her friends?”
“No.”
“Sounds like Lisa-kine shibai to me,” Jay said.
“You just don’t know, Jay,” Char Siu said. “We’re not in elementary any more. All the girls our age wear ‘em. You’ll see.”
“Good thing we’re not girls,” I said. “I wouldn’t last a minute walking around in those shoes. Pohō, that.”
“Hard for run li’dat,” Jay said. He looked up at her. “Hard for see li’dat, too.”
“It’s called make-up,” she said.
“I’ve seen make-up. My Mom wears make-up. Lili, too. Her stuff is all over the bathroom. But make-up doesn’t make mempachi eyes li’dat. That’s something else.”
I looked a little closer. Char Siu’s eyes did look bigger, rounder, like she’d opened the door and giant spiders jumped out. One eye twitched and then stuck half open-half closed.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” I asked.
“Nothing!”
“Then why is it sticking to your face like that?”
“Ho!” Char Siu reached up and peeled something off her eyelid. “The stupid Scotch tape won’t stay. I told Lisa it wasn’t right.”
One eyelid looked normal now and the other still looked like it was keeping track of a man-eating bug. She reached up and peeled something off the other eyelid and suddenly she looked normal.
Well, normal for Char Siu.
All excerpts and short stories copyright © 2012 by Lehua Parker. Excerpts from the Niuhi Shark Saga by permission of Jolly Fish Press, LLC. All rights reserved. Illustration by Corey Egbert. No part of these excerpts may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. No part of these short stories may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.
The wind-blown look.
Photo-bombed by the horses.
The Producer
Even the cats wondered what the fuss was all about.
I hate getting my picture taken. The photos never look like me, the image of myself that lives inside my head. Frankly, I probably never looked liked the image in my head. I’m a writer. I have a great imagination.
As a writer, I spend most of my days in yoga pants and tee-shirts in front of my computer. It’s a big day if I have to buy groceries and talk to a cashier. Heaven help me if I actually have to walk into the school to pick up a kid.
But occasionally I do have to comb my hair, put some make-up on, find clothes without pukas or stains, and submit to being photographed. Book 2, One Shark, No Swim is about to be launched, so new photos were in order.
The photographer said, “I want to capture you in your natural environment.”
Looking down at my Will Work for Books sweatshirt, ratty stretch pants, hair stuffed in a messy pony, lying on the couch guzzling Diet Coke, I didn’t think he knew what he was getting into. “You mean you want to shoot at the house?” I asked.
“I want the readers to see the real you!”
Personally, I’ve always been a bigger fan of the fantasy. Reality always includes too many dishes, kids with sticky hands, and things that make you go ewww.
As we headed out the door to take some shots, my daughter the rodeo princess looked up. “Your make-up’s nice, Mom. Not too over-the-top. I mean, it’s not a like a Rodeo Clown or anything. Not-too-Momish either.”
“Great,” I said, “glad to know I hit the sweet-spot between hobo and whore.”
“I was going to say New York chic, but now that I look at you, it’s kinda more New York-Mom chic.
I don’t even know what that means. But the fun didn’t stop there. The whole barnyard had to get into the act.
“Let’s try some shots by the aspens” was an invitation to the free-range chickens and guinea hens to peck at my feet, hopeful some old grapes or stale bread would come their way. “How about we try something with your arm on a fence rail” turned into a group photo. “Come here and we’ll sit and review what we’ve taken” was the cue for one of the cats to jump on the photographer’s lap and check out the photos. No, really. You’d have thought the cat was the producer if you’d seen the way he pushed us aside to see the viewfinder.
At one point I realized I was the center of attention for fifteen chickens, two guinea hens, three horses, two dogs, and two cats–and one poor photographer standing on a wrought iron lawn chair to get the right angle. No wonder all the critters were staring.
And wondering where the food was.
Probably should’ve gone with photos of them instead.
