If you go for a bit of quirky and a dash of magic realism with a heaping serving of easy-breezy friendship-romance, these might be your cup of tea. (I always feel squidgy describing the books; if you've read them and have a better summary, I definitely welcome your take!)
The "Wilfair" books are not really YA but NA, rather -- new adult.
There are three 20 year olds at the center of the story, and an 18 year old, and two 10 year olds, and a couple of 45 year olds, and a 24 year old, a 23 year old, and, soon, a couple of people in their 60s and younger teens.
The Lady in Sequins, if she's real, is probably about 90. Or 200? She's very elusive, that maybe-fake hotel ghost.
Some of the themes -- coughsexyhuggingcough -- are appropriate to 20 year olds, but keeping semi-classy is one of my main goals. I may classy-down later, if it suits the story, but so far innuendo, flirting, light suggestion, and appropriate physical contact are keeping things at about where I want them.
"Appropriate physical contact" sounds cold. It isn't cold touching, in the books, I hope. Opposite.
A teacher told me she shared the books with her 8th grade girls. And two readers have shared the books with their moms. I'd like that to remain something people can do -- share the books and not be too blushy-in-the-face over certain bits.
Maybe a little blushy.
Who Might Try Out These Books
Wilfair Callback Poster
You're probably like, "yay, Alysia is posting another small and blurry photo of a poster!" I jest, of course. But since I posted about the Wilfair Character Poster a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd talk briefly about the Wilfair Callback Poster.
We all know what a callback is in a movie or a book (I prefer the word "repeater," really, but callback seems catchier). Basically any time characters return to a joke or a topic they'd been talking about or one of the themes of the story, it's a callback.
I knew I wanted the Wilfair stories to have lots of callbacks, because that's how I really live; when I'm with my friends over a weekend, we'll return to the same jokes, changing them or adding on. Or we'll tease each other about the same things we've been teasing each other about for years (nicely, natch). Do you do this?
And nope, this poster isn't quite as fun as the Character Poster -- no monster stickers -- but it does have pretty much every reference that the Wilfair characters make more than once. Plus a few to come in the next book, "Stay Awhile." Those are the tiny asterisks.
Of course, while callbacks may dot a story the challenge is to move it forward, move the characters forward, move everything forward, while the people in it return, on occasion, to the same topics they'd been talking about. I do love the challenge. :)
One thing I can't resist returning to a few times a book is how Fair and Gomery sometimes have a brief exchange of silent information via how they look at each other. "My look said 'are we going out there?' His look said 'we probably should.' My look said 'I wasn't, like, prepared for this.' His look said 'me either.'"
Small Inspirations
A famous sci-fi author visited my college writing class and revealed something I never forgot: He got an idea for a book series by reading the back of a can of household cleanser.
Since then I've looked for inspirations in small places rather than large. Here are a few things that have played a part in inspiring the "Wilfair" series.
-- That moment in the 2005 "Pride & Prejudice" when Bingley furtively touches the back of Jane's dress. I'd look up the exact time but I think it comes about ten minutes into the film, at a party. It lasts for all of a second. It fills my head with glitter.
-- The middle part of Pete Yorn's "Life on a Chain." The chorus goes "I was waiting over here for life to begin. I was looking for the new thing and you were the sunshine in my frontline. I was alone and you were just around the corner from me."
-- The smell of tar and methane around the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles.
-- "Something" by the Beatles. George Harrison, my favorite Beatle, makes me think of Gomery. Gomery looks quite different, in my mind, but when I see photos of George Harrison from the late '60s I sometimes think of a fictional motel employee. Maybe it is in how the musician stands or his love of corduroy. George Harrison's hands, too, playing guitar. Please. :)
-- The way an orange hangs heavily on a branch.
-- This kiss from "The General." I'm a huge silent film fan and the moment Buster Keaton plants one on his ladyfriend, while they're trying to stop a runaway train, made me think a lot about runaway trains, couples, and how sometimes you need to stop, despite the imminent danger, and plant one, hard.
This kiss is pretty hot for 1926.
Well, film kiss, I should say. People in 1926 kissed just like we do today.
The Princess and the Castle
If someone called the WILFAIR series a princess-castle story, I wouldn't object. Putting a modern, urban spin on the traditional princess-castle story has very much intrigued me.
I adore those old stories, or most of them. But I wanted to write about a princess who is in charge of her castle. She isn't just a figurehead. And even though she doesn't own her power yet, I wanted her to find a way to embrace her strength and talents.
And hotels, especially the very large and historic ones, are definitely city castles. Like a castle, a hotel is a busy little world unto itself, self-contained and complete with all needs. And hotels are castles anyone can stay at, too, which I love. It's that come-one-come-all spirit that infuses a hotel with immediate dramatic potential.
So:
Princess=Fair Finley
Castle=Wilfair Hotel
Kingdom=Finley family's nine California hotels
In the end, the princess of the WILFAIR books knows she has to get her key-wrap together. Thank goodness she is getting closer to the blacksmith and candlemaker next door. They won't be responsible for her owning her power -- that's totally her journey -- but their friendships will lend support and maybe a little sparkle to her day-to-day castle-managing duties.
Fair Finley's "I Want" Song
The "I Want" Song is commonly found in animated movies and non-animated musicals. The heroine is standing on a hill or a bale of hay or inside a Kansas barnyard and she proceeds to describe her wishes and hopes via her soaring voice.
Yep, Dorothy had a major "I Want" moment during "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I'm also sweet on Tiana's "Almost There" from "The Princess and the Frog" and Ariel's "Part of Your World" in "The Little Mermaid." There are many more in popular culture, and, yep, the hero will often sing one, too. I'm thinking of Seymour in "Little Shop of Horrors," who only wants to get off Skid Row. (If you have a favorite, let me know in the comments.)
So when I started WILFAIR I thought a lot about Fair Finley's "I Want" Song.
"I just want everyone to win and no one to be sad" is definitely the main theme of her song. She doesn't actually sing it, of course, but that's the core theme.
She has other wants, of course, and, like all of us, probably a few she hasn't figured out yet. I wanted her desires to run the gamut, with the majority of them landing on the important side of the scale. Our heroine may dress in ruffles and flutter at times, but Fair Finley is not frivolous, especially about others' feelings. Or, I hope, her own.
Here are some Fair wants that have been mentioned. (I suppose a few of these might be spoilers but I feel comfortable with sharing them if you haven't read the books; there's nothing too revealing here.)
-- She wants to be a better big sister.
-- She wants to make her parents proud.
-- She wants to figure out if her family's business, the hotel business, is truly for her.
-- She wants to apologize less.
-- She wants to not be an old child forever.
-- She wants/doesn't want to take her neighbors' motel swimming pool.
-- She wants her best friend to not forget her when she leaves for college.
-- She wants to know what a close, deep, and even-ground friendship with someone she's attracted to feels like. And what is beyond that friendship. And if her head will explode into a million sparkles merely from thinking about it.
-- She wants to wear fewer snoods.
What's your "I Want" song? Mine, at least this morning, involves a toaster waffle with almond butter. :)
The Swears
There's chitchat over on Forever Young Adult this morning about swearing in Young Adult books.
The WILFAIR books have what I've called "light" swearing -- a few craps and hells and damns. But nothing harder. I made this choice for a few reasons.
1. The story is set in the "now" but it is a vaguely old-fashioned, heightened reality now. Our main character Fair Finley is a professional and a representative of her family business. So are her two guy neighbors. So. Unleashing strings of colorful expletives wouldn't work, both for the world and the main character's job.
2. The main character's friend, Sutton Von Hunt, does swear, but because she also works in a public capacity, she has been asked by her grandmother to watch her language. She finds a few ways to do so. The swears are no longer there but you can feel Sutton's hot-tempered meaning when she says she "sparkles rainbows unicorns doesn't like something." Or at least I hope you can.
3. I'm not anti-swearing and I do speak freely at home; an "ouchie!' isn't going to cut it with a stubbed toe or a surprise bill. But does my stomach squidge a tiny bit when I see people getting incredibly sweary in front of strangers in public? Yes. I guess that's pretty much my main beef with swearing. Just be aware of others.
Actually, "be aware of others" is one of my main beefs with many things. :)
4. Monty Overbove makes the point in REDWOODIAN that we've all become inured to a lot of the sweariest swears. I agree with him; what can be intended to shock often leaves the listener stifling a yawn. Maybe we all need some really juicy new bad words. Word inventors of the world, please come up with some. Make 'em zingy. Thank you.
5. None of this applies to innuendo, which I like to think of as the craftier third cousin to swearing. How I do enjoy when a character says something a bit filthy or a bit wrong but veils it in such a way that it skims the heads of those it wasn't intended for but still delivers an exciting pow to those characters who get it. Innuendo is my writing boyfriend.
Lovely readers, what do you think? Are you comfortable with the lack of swearing and/or the swear substitutes you've read in the books? Do you find them realistic to the WILFAIR world or do they seem a bit fusty and old-fashioned? I'd love to hear.
Subverting the Big Reveal
The Big Reveal in a story or film has always charmed me. Two potential sweethearts spend much of a film looking slovenly or at least very casual. Then, in the final act, they suddenly appear at the dance or the ball or the wedding and, wow, are they suddenly fancy and gorgeous.
The girl often swans down a grand staircase into the guy's arms:
"Wow," says the guy. "You clean up nice."
"So do you," says the girl, nearly losing her balance in her new high heels.
He catches her elbow and their eyes meet.
One of the freedoms of going the self-publishing route with the WILFAIR books is being able to try what I want to try and toy with the standards. This isn't to say traditionally published writers aren't given awesome freedoms to stretch and subvert and experiment; I'm quite sure they are. And, as I've said before, I'm sweet on the traditional route. I'll never harsh on anyone's mellow regarding self-pub vs. traditional. To each her own and high fives all around.
WILFAIR's first two potential sweethearts (oh yes, there are more to come -- hi, Carly) are Fair Finley and Gomery Overbove. The hotel heiress and motel employee deserve their Big Reveal, too, but because Fair is usually in vintage movie gowns and Gomery's in his tie and button-up, their Big Reveal naturally has to go in the opposite direction.
In short: Can two characters go from dressy to dressed-down and still wow each other? Would it be kind of exciting to see your crush, a person who is typically gussied up, appear in your doorway clad in a t-shirt, denim skirt, and clogs?
Nope, it isn't a major subversion of a tried-and-true theme and I'm not saying I'm rewriting any rules. Goodness no. But I am gaining plenty of pleasure from lining up a bunch of tiny subversions, one after the other, in these books, and seeing how they stack up. Because the tiny and quieter subversions, I find, ultimately pack more punch.
I hope you're enjoying them, too.
Being Present
Yep. I like my phone. A whole lot. But when I got to thinking about the WILFAIR books and who the character of Gomery Overbove might be I alighted upon his first quirk: He'd always keep his phone firmly in pocket when Fair or his friends were around.
Cheers to artist Dan Piraro. I see this one circulating bunches.
Two Wilfair Themes
People want to kiss in the books and some odd things happen, too -- that's all important -- but if you don't have nice and you don't have elbow grease, you don't have much in this world.
Cr: Larry Buchanan Design (gorgeous work)
