by Lehua Parker | Jan 23, 2020 | Mana'o (Thoughts), New Books, The Business of Writing
A good story is one that resonates with its audience.
Period.
This afternoon I had a lot of things I had to do. Writing deadlines dangerously due. Horses, cats, and dogs to care for. House to straighten. Plants to water. Chili to make. Did I mention deadlines?
So, of course, instead of putting my nose to the grindstone, I grabbed a book I’d been meaning to read since my college son came home for Christmas and said, “You need to read this.”
“Manga? I don’t read manga,” I said. “I can’t draw to save my life. When I was directing videos, they hired someone to redo my storyboards, they were so bad.”
“But you create stories. You need to read this.”
I thanked him and said I’d get to it. I knew he wouldn’t recommend it if he didn’t think it worthwhile. I stuck it on the credenza in the living room where it sat, staring at me, until today when I plunked down in front of the fireplace for a couple of hours.
Fireplaces and books are the one good thing about a snowy day.
I wasn’t avoiding writing—not really. Sometimes you do have to push through a tough spot, but I’m facing three tough spots in three different works, and I knew staring at the computer wasn’t going to solve any of them.
But maybe a couple of hours reading a book on craft would shake something loose.
Now I’ve read and studied a hundred or more books on writing and editing. I could start my own specialty bookstore with just what’s lying around my office. I’ve taught courses on story structure, and have edited professionally for decades.
But this book reminded me of a few things I haven’t thought of in years.
Manga in Theory and Practice by Hirohiko Araki is map of how he approaches his work as a mangata, an author and illustrator of Japanese manga. His best known work is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, arguably one of the most successful shonen manga ever created. His primary target audience is boys 12 to 20, although the real audience is much wider.
Araki knows how to deliver what his readers (and editors) want, but his dissection of what makes good manga great seems diametrically opposed to what is generally considered good story structure to Western-trained writers. The action always rises. The hero always wins. The hero must act in a positive accordance with society’s values—even a seemingly bad action must be done for a noble reason.
In his book, Araki discusses his four key elements of manga: character, story, setting, and themes. The most important, he feels, is character. He spends a lot of time creating detailed character sheets before he writes one word or draws one line, and often includes things that strike me as uniquely Japanese, like listing a character’s blood type because that reveals important character traits. His approach is to create a cast of contrasting characters, give them motivations, and then turn them loose in settings. The dialogue and action flows organically—an approach also used by western writers like Stephen King.
Araki uses specific story beats to drive his story: ki-sho-ten-ketsu, introduction (ki), development (sho), twist (ten), and resolution (ketsu). While there can be several ten beats in a story, there is never the classic try-fail cycles we see in western literature. The action always rises and the antagonists increase in power as the hero grows. The best way to describe this is to think of an underdog baseball team who rises from backyard ball games to the world championship without ever losing a game.
It kinda boggled my mind.
But when I remembered his audience and why Araki writes, it all made sense.
Araki’s rules are founded on principles defined by his audience’s strong likes and dislikes. Heroes that fail? Boring. Heroes that make poor choices? Why am I wasting my time and money?
These conventions absolutely work for his audience—and that’s the key, I think.
Shonen manga readers identify with the heroes. They want to be entertained. They want to see themselves succeed. When the hero wins, it gives them hope that they, too, can face hard things and win.
I’m not certain if this structure and approach directly translates to western stories. For young readers, certainly. Others, probably not. But I’m going to think about this as I tackle my three stubborn works-in-progress.
There’s much more in Manga in Theory and Practice than what I’ve covered. I loved his focus on the first panel, that it makes or breaks the story if the reader won’t care enough to turn the page, and how he says write the story that speaks to you, put your ideals on the page, or the work won’t sing.
My son was happy to hear I finally read his book. He says he’s got a long list of friends in line to read it. I ordered my own copy of Manga in Theory and Practice to put on my bookshelf next to On Writing, Save the Cat, The Story Grid, and The Anatomy of Story.
Not all stories are western stories. It’s good to remember that.
Manga in Theory and Practice by Hirohiko Araki is available from Amazon in hardback and eBook.
by Lehua Parker | Dec 19, 2019 | Mana'o (Thoughts), Slice of Life
On the eve of the release of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, I’ve been thinking about my Star Wars boyfriend.
I first saw Star Wars at the Kapiolani Theater in Honolulu, late summer 1977, when it was called Star Wars and not A New Hope.
Mom was working, so Dad decided to take us to a Saturday matinee. The lines for Star Wars were hella-long, so at my father’s urging, my younger sister and I wormed our way to the front of the line and bought tickets. Dad sent me in to find seats while he and my sister stood in line for snacks. Kapiolani Theater was huge, about 800 seats, and only showed one movie at a time. I found good seats—not too close, not too far, and in the center of the screen—and sat down.
Somebody plunked down right next to me.
Startled, I turned to find Mike, a kid I knew from the YMCA after school program in Kahala. He went to Hahaione Elementary. I went to Kamiloiki. I was in 6th grade. He was in 5th. At the YMCA, he and I played basketball with the other 5th and 6th grade boys, running full out, barefoot, on sun-baked asphalt courts with loose gravel on top, the reason the bottoms of my feet were like leather.
Can’t run fast in slippahs, yeah?
“Hi,” Mike said.
“Hi, Mike.” I looked around. “Where’s your family?”
“I’m here by myself,” Mike said.
This blew my mind.
“Alone? Fo’real? That’s not safe,” I said. “You better sit with my family.”
Mike nodded. “Thanks. There was a skebe guy in the bathroom. He followed me from the bathroom and sat by me before I moved and sat by you.” He sucked his soda straw, the ice dregs rumbling. He shook his cup. “I’ve seen Star Wars fifteen times.”
“No way.”
“Way. This will be the third time today.”
Nobody has that much money, I thought.
“Shibai,” I said.
“It’s true. Just before the credits roll, I go hide in the bathroom. I close the stall door and squat on the toilet so nobody can see my legs. When they start letting people in for the next showing, I come out and get a seat. Nobody notices a single kid. Well, the skebe guys do.”
Genius, I thought. And totally scary. What’s wrong with him? Movies by himself and hiding in the bathroom? Lucky we came along.
About this time, Dad and my sister appeared, carrying three small sodas and one large popcorn to share. “Hey, Dad, look who’s here. It’s Mike from YMCA.”
“Hi,” Mike said.
Dad didn’t bother acknowledging Mike, but his disapproval poured down on me like a tidal wave of ice. When Dad handed me my soda, I was shocked it was still liquid.
The lights dimmed. Star Wars sucked me into a world that delighted and sparked my imagination, starting with the very first line: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Suddenly, hiding in the bathroom to see it again seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The story, the scenes, the characters—all magical—despite Mike whispering to me that this next part was the best, watch for this, watch for that, (seriously, dude, shut-up), and despite the wrath I knew was waiting for me when the credits rolled and Mike slipped away again to the bathroom.
Over the years, my friends and I would discuss our theories about Luke, Leia, Han, and the Force. We broke down the story, looked for hidden meanings, and pondered the power of the Force. We cast ourselves in various roles. Others were always Luke, Leia, and Han; I was often cast as Admiral Ackbar—blah and a little bit creepy, but better, I thought, than friends who were assigned to be Jawas or Stormtroopers.
We were working with a story universe we created from two movies and one crappy holiday special that just confused us. (Life Day? This feels like a bad Andy Williams special. And no way Chewbacca has a son named Lumpy.)
In my mind, I made up my own character, a badass Jedi outside of the Skywalker clan. A cousin, maybe. We anticipated the next movie with all the zeal that my future kids would have for the next Harry Potter book. We debated, dreamed, and hoped.
We’re shaped by the stories we think about. Star Wars certainly changed how I viewed the world.
It also changed the way my father viewed me.
Later, no matter what I said, Dad never believed that I didn’t plan to meet Mike at the theater. In his mind, I ruined his special family movie by inviting an interloper, a boy, and played my father for a patsy in a burgeoning pre-pubescent romance. If Dad had stopped to really think about it, I never had time or opportunity to tell Mike when we’d be there. I didn’t know myself. More importantly, as any kid knows, there was never going to be a romance between an obey-all-the-rules 6th grade girl and a snot-nosed 5th grade boy with a dubious moral code, especially since I was a head taller and a much better basketball player.
Fo’real.
Things changed between my dad and me that day, although I didn’t understand or recognize it at the time. I was now Suspect and Boy Crazy in his mind—pretty hilarious since all the guys that I went to dances with in high school except one (Hi Larry!) eventually came out of the closet. I never had a boyfriend until I went away to college, and that one I married. June marks our 33rd wedding anniversary.
Looking back, Dad should have known that the too-loud, awkward, bookish tomboy, all elbows and knees, was too busy competing with the boys or reading books to have time for romance.
Tonight I have tickets to the last Star Wars movie in the nine story arc. At the end of a 42 year journey, things are different. This time, near midnight, I am going to sit next to my boyfriend, in heated deluxe loungers, with reserved seats—no waiting in long lines except for popcorn and soda–which I probably won’t drink because I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll have to miss any part of the movie.
We will hold hands.
Maybe even smooch in the parking lot.
Can’t wait.
by Lehua Parker | Nov 20, 2019 | Mana'o (Thoughts), Slice of Life
One day Mom called me in from playing. She gave me a tuna fish sandwich and some carrot sticks and said there was a brand new TV show just for me. I don’t remember eating lunch, but I do remember a big yellow bird and a monster in a trash can.
For years, Sesame Street kept me company while I ate lunch. Later, when it switched to late afternoon, I knew when it was over, Dad would be walking through the door.
I haven’t watched Sesame Street in decades. My kids seldom watched it, probably because by the time they were born there were so many shows—entire channels!—just for them, that Sesame Street was lost in the crowd. But last night I watched Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on PBS.org, streaming it when convenient, freed from my childhood angst of clock-watching to be sure I didn’t miss it.
I knew when it started that things could not be the same, but I was still shocked to hear Not Big Bird’s Voice and Not Grover and Not Kermit and Not Oscar.
Seeing Bob made me tear up. He’ll always be in his thirties and forties to me.
There were no palm trees or beaches on Sesame Street, and that in itself was endlessly fascinating. Kids wore shoes ALL the time! They lived in big brick buildings with gigantic concrete steps they could sit on. They could walk on sidewalks to Mr. Hooper’s Store where there was not a single crack seed jar in the joint. And while kids were shown running and playing on grass in the opening song, I never saw kids doing that on Sesame Street.
No wonder they wore shoes all the time.
A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.
How did anyone buy a single stick of butter? And why a container of milk, not a carton? Didn’t mainland milk come in a waxed paper cartons with Lani Moo or hibiscuses on them?
So many questions!
50 years later, people still remember the songs, sketches, characters, and the promise of Sesame Street. Muppets and humans in all shapes, sizes, ages, abilities, and colors were portrayed as family, and by extension, so were we. Sesame Street created a television community that stretched from Hawai’i to New York and beyond. In a time when people are theoretically more connected than ever, there’s no show like this one that rallies children from all walks of life into a community. There are simply too many choices now.
A little ironic, don’t you think?
by Lehua Parker | Oct 17, 2019 | Island Style, Lauele Town Stories, The Business of Writing
Under the Bed was the first story I wrote when I was thinking about writing fiction again. Back in 2009, my sister Soozy challenged me to enter a local newspaper’s Halloween short story contest. She said write something that’s true, but nobody believes. Called Sniff, it was about a mainland boy who has something under his bed, a something with an overdeveloped sense of smell that likes sweet things and hates stinky things. It was for an adult audience, and the underlying theme was about how busy parents miss important things going on with their kids, and if they aren’t careful, Bad Things Happen.
Sniff won a nice steak dinner for me and my husband and reminded me that I like telling stories. It led to me reaching out to the local writing community and eventually writing and publishing fiction again.
Over the years, I’ve dusted this story off and rewritten it multiple times, changing the location to Hawaii and adding more story. I even submitted a version to Bamboo Ridge a couple of years ago, but no dice.
Last June, I found it again. I had the idea to write some island-style books for kids 9-14 or so, quick reads that had elements of Hawaiian-kine ghost stories and adventures similar to Goosebumps, but with more bite. I figured I’d call the series Lauele Chicken Skin Stories and set them in my imaginary area of ‘Oahu called Lauele. I had a bunch of scary stories that I’d written and published years ago and now had the publishing rights back. In my head, it wouldn’t be too hard to create new versions of these stories and roll them out pretty quickly.
The first one was going to be Under the Bed. It has a great cover. It should have gone to print in early September and been in readers’ hands by now, just in time for Halloween.
But.
But.
Sigh.
I have an editor I work with. He’s a genius who knows more about story structure than most editors twice his age. And he really hated Under the Bed. He wasn’t shy about telling me why. He said the ending sucked, that I broke the promises I made with the reader in the beginning and the payoff isn’t there. He said it also hit all his hot buttons—a kid neglected by his parents who dies in the end. The more I explained, the more he just rolled his eyes and said, “Who is your audience?”
To prove him wrong, I sent it out to a few beta readers. They really liked it. Then I gave it away in ebook form at different conventions and tracked follow-on sales and comments.
Crickets.
There were no sales that went from Under the Bed to any of my other works that I could track.
Bummahs to the max.
Stupid genius editor was right. The story doesn’t work. I took off my author’s hat and put on my own editor’s hat and started reworking the story, trying to figure out what was missing.
Again.
Halting publication of Under the Bed derailed my entire schedule for the rest of the year, but it had to be done. If your first impression sucks, no way a reader is going to pick up any other book in your series.
I was stewing about what to do when I attended Utah Valley University’s Book Academy last week. I’d given a presentation about establishing resonance with your audience through the story’s setting and then hung around for some of the other presentations. Lisa Mangum, a powerhouse of an editor and conference speaker, gave a presentation, Endings That Don’t Suck.
A light bulb went off.
The people who liked Under the Bed were all adults. They were also probably more excited about the Pidgin and other local aspects than the actual story.
But the new intended target was kids, and they were going to hate it. Kona needs to be the hero, not the victim. Kids already know that adults are clueless. They need to see a kid overcome adversity—and win. I needed to completely gut the story and start over. The only things that could stay were the monster under the bed and the desire Kona has to protect his family.
I don’t know when this work is going to be ready for publication. I have to leave Under the Bed for a while to write other works under contract.
But never fear, Constant Reader. New works are coming. In addition to the Lauele Chicken Skin Stories, I have three reimagined Western fairy tales that are almost ready to publish under Lauele Fractured Folktales. And audio books of the Niuhi Shark Saga are in the works, too.
It’s just taking a lot longer than I planned.
But I think you’ll find the wait was worth it.
I hope.
by Lehua Parker | Jun 24, 2019 | Book Reviews & Announcements, Island Style, Pacific Literature
I’m so excited to add these books to my collection. They are the same book with two different covers in two different languages: Hawaiian and English.
Published by Awaiaulu Press, the English edition is The Epic Tale of Hi’iakaikapoliopele as told by Ho’oulumahienhie and translated by M. Puakea Nagelmeien. The Hawaiian edition is Ka Mo’olelo o Hi’iakaikapoliopele.
This ancient saga details the quest of Pele’s younger sister, Hi’iakaikapoliopele, to find the handsome Lohi’auipo and bring him back to their crater home. Graced with a magical skirt and wielding supernatural powers, Hi’iaka and her companions make their way through dangers and ordeals, facing spectral foes and worldly wiles. It is a very 
human account of love and lust, jealousy and justice, peopled with deities, demons, chiefs and commoners. It highlights Hi’iaka’s role as a healer, source of inspiration, and icon of the hula traditions that embody the chants and dances of Pele and Hi’iaka. At over 500 pages, this is the most extensive form of the story every documented, offering a wealth of detail and insights about the social and religious practices, poetry and hula, the healing arts, and many other Hawaiian customs.
Did I mention the illustrations? Fabulous.
One day I hope to be able to flip easily between the two, but that day is a looooong way off.
In my office are shelves full of books I cannot read yet. I buy 
them because I think it’s important to support native language books. If we believe that language and is life and that written words connect generations, then we need to support these kinds of efforts in ways beyond good thoughts and well-wishes.
You want more diverse books, characters, films, music, art? Then support the arts in all forms. Go to local plays, concerts, art shows, books signings, film festivals, and kokua as you can. Simply leaving a positive review or spreading the word does more good than people realize.
The world’s a better place with many voices telling their stories. Let’s amplify and pass the mic.
by Lehua Parker | May 22, 2019 | Mana'o (Thoughts)
There’s an image cropping up in diversity in literature presentations that describes culture as an iceberg.
People love this graphic. It’s of a massive chunk of ice floating in a deep blue sea with labels stuck to places above and below the waterline. On the surface, there’s the readily seen ten percent experienced by foreigners, things like food, dress, language, music, art, and festivals. A little below the waterline are layers labeled body language, personal space, etiquette, and gender roles. Deeper still are sections labeled attitudes toward elders, authority, religion, and work. Down in the depths you’ll find spaces reserved for things like approaches to marriage, death, child raising, and problem solving. It’s a slick visual that’s often used to segue into the dangers of cultural appropriation.
Too bad it’s wrong.
By their very nature, icebergs are frozen and adrift, traveling only by the whims of ocean currents and breezes. They’re constantly eroding, shrinking, melting into a sea of conformity until one day they just disappear.
It’s hard to imagine a less inspiring metaphor for cultural sensitivity.
That’s why I like the metaphor of culture as a lotus growing in a pond.
Think about it. A lotus is integral to an entire ecosystem. On the surface are beautiful flowers. Out of sight, hidden but known, is a long stem tethering the lotus to the bottom of the pond where it grows, nourished by the bones of lotuses gone before. A lotus isn’t simply acted on by currents or eroded by waves and heat. Lotuses have both roots and branches; seed pods slip from the mother plant, drift a little, settle, and eventually form their own flowers—similar, but not the same. There is an interconnectedness to lotuses in a pond, a dependence on shared resources, a history and lineage.
That’s culture.
From a boat, it’s easy to observe lotuses in relationship to the other—the landings of frogs and dragonflies, the effects of light and wind, how fish shelter in the lotus’s shade. Grounded on shore, observers intuitively know that no matter how they try, they are not lotuses, no more than a bear or a sparrow or a pine tree is a lotus.
Basking in the beauty of a lotus pond is cultural appreciation. Writing as a dragonfly or frog about your lotus experiences is cultural appreciation. Plucking lotuses, regardless of good intentions of bringing blossoms to the pondless masses, is cultural appropriation. Unmoored from all that nourished and supported it, separated from its purpose in life, a lotus in a vase is just a dying flower.
Now that’s an image I can get behind.
