Literary Goon 2.0
"Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?" -Jennifer EganSo,
While I was working at the Booming Ground program at UBC a few years ago, I was paired with a high school student named Jordan Lefaivre, who was writing an ambitious YA fantasy series called Reflection.
Already hundreds and hundreds of pages long at that point, it was a pretty big undertaking. But I dived into his work, learning new alien words and memorizing the names of a variety of fantastical species, and together we started stream-lining the narrative and working towards getting it into a publishable state.
We’ve now worked our way through three full-length revisions and last week, when I handed back Jordan’s final report, I asked him whether he would be willing to answer a few questions for Literary Goon. I’ve agreed to work with him to try to find an agent or publisher for Reflection, and we figured this would be a good way to get his name out there.
Personally, I think this is a moving story that could be an important resource for young readers with autism and their families. Jordan has poured a lot of his personal experiences into this book, and engaging in Jordan’s world will give readers a sense of what it’s like to be autistic in a world that’s sometimes hostile and unforgiving.
#1. We’ve been working for a few years now on Reflection, which is about a teenage autistic girl named Phoebe Hope Jordan who gets kidnapped and travels into a strange new place called Yuetsion. I love this world, Jordan, and I associate it with all the great fantastical settings: Middle Earth, Neverland, Westerns.
I’m curious: when and how was Yuetsion born in your brain?
Well, thoughts on the story Reflection and its world Yuetsion formed in my mind starting when I was 16 or 17-years-old. It all started as an image of a young girl (later developed into Phoebe, a 13-year-old Canadian with autism) standing atop of this colossal compass/clock-like structure with its oversized hands spinning rapidly below her. It basically began as one fascinating scene in my mind and I just constantly built on the scenery. Then I built on a large story, an assortment of characters and an alien fantasy world inhabited by different mythical beings and creatures linked to the scenery.
By the way, I have put a scene similar to Phoebe and the massive clock-like structure into book 5, unless I’m convinced to edit the scene into something different.
To me, I envision building a whole story, especially something series-length, as a gargantuan puzzle with thousands of pieces. I create the pieces (the story, characters and world/setting), I start putting the pieces into place, (getting everything in proper order and connected), repositioning or shapeshifting the different pieces (editing) and not ending until the whole puzzle is 100% complete.
I started working on this project when I was 18. I first worked on a well-detailed summary of the whole story (which I originally planned as one big book instead of a series) and I didn’t want to start working on the novel until I was fully satisfied with the summary, to avoid having to re-edit large amounts of the novel or even change half the novel around. Once done, I wrote the whole rough draft of the whole book, which took hours of daily work for about 10 months.
Through you Will, I later on discovered that the novel, which ended up being about 300,000 words long and over 1,200 pages long, would be better off laid out as a series. For a short while I tried figuring out how many books I should split it into and which portions of the story I should separate. Then after I read The Spiderwick Chronicles, which had only 7 chapters for each of the 5 books, I decided to do what Tony Diterlizzi did, split the massive Reflection book into a 5-book series.
As for the name Yuetsion, like all the other foreign names I’ve invented in the series, I just looked at my keyboard, chose a letter to begin with and just created random yet proper assortments of vowels and consonants until I made a name with a nice ring to it.
That’s how the world Yuetsion was born into my brain and how I’ve constructed the world and everything else in the Reflection series.
#2. Phoebe is bullied at school due to her autism, and much of this narrative is about her overcoming her social fears and learning to trust people. I found her story really moving, and I think she’s a fascinating/inspiring character. What do you think readers can learn from Phoebe?
Well, I’m thinking and hoping readers can learn and develop a good understanding about life with autism from Phoebe’s character and to never judge a book by its cover, through Phoebe and other characters throughout the series. I’m also hoping that Phoebe can help spread autism awareness and understanding throughout the world, along with the different good morals that the Reflection series offers as well. Because I blended autism into an epic fantasy series, I think it could attract people’s attention.
About ½ to 2/3rd’s of her autistic traits are based off of mine and I gave her other autistic traits other people with autism could have. (Note: just because people will get to know her autism, doesn’t automatically mean they’ll know everyone’s autism 100% accurately. I mention in the first chapter of book 1 about how all people with autism are different and unique in their own way.)
#3. Your title is interesting, and now that I’ve read the book I can see that it has multiple meanings. I know that it’s tied into the idea of every person having a “uishanole” (I’ll let you explain what that is) but it also seems to be about Phoebe’s discomfort with her own image, her own reflection. Can you tell me why you chose that title?
I chose Reflection as the series’ main title because Phoebe is the uishanole, which means a “reflection” of someone from a different world or dimension. In this case, she’s the uishanole of Princess Vehilia and that’s the reason why the yuets (aliens) bring her to the fantasy dimension. It’s the main and only reason why she’s the protagonist of the series.
The readers will find out why the yuets, the beings of Yuetsion, need her due to her being the uishanole of Princess Vehilia when they read book 1. By the way, I really can’t wait to ask any possible future fans the question: which of the seven different yuet beings would they want their uishanoles to be? I’d ask after book 2 is published because that’s when the remaining seven yuet races are introduced.
I admit there are other aspects throughout the series that could tie into the title Reflection, but I made it so that its title is most definitely referring to and symbolizing Phoebe being the uishanole of Princess Vehilia.
#4. This is an ambitious, hyper-long project you’re working on. We’ve now whittled the first book down to about 53,000 words, but originally you handed in hundreds of thousands! And I know you’ve plotted out multiple books in the series. My question is: where do you find all the time? Does writing just consume you daily?
After graduating from high school, I’ve had a small part-time job. I haven’t been taking any college or university courses, which altogether really helps give me enough time to work on a creative writing project as big as the Reflection series. Yes, writing can consume me daily, but I do need to take breaks while I’m writing, to help my mind to not get too overworked and to help me to think clearly and write properly again.
#5. What have you learned over the process of revising and working on Reflection over these past few years?
I’ve learned to never rush through creative writing; otherwise the projects I work on won’t turn out as good. This helped me to come up with the phrase: If you rush it, you’ll fail it, but if you slow it, you’ll win it… unless you’re in a race.
Another thing I learned, is that if you plan on writing a series of books, the whole project could turn out much more improved or even better than originally planned and it could even save you a lot of difficulty if you write the whole series first (even it’s all written in rough draft form) before getting into publishing, as opposed to writing the first book, then immediately publishing it and then getting started on the second book after. When having the whole series written out before publishing, you have the ability to go back and forth in the series, making the story better and getting rid of any plot holes or flaws in the beginning, middle and end of the series, before the first book or two are published and too late to fix and improve.
The Reflection series even taught me to invent another good phrase to share like: “Don’t be shy, let your imagination fly… as long as it’s appropriate.”
#6. I know you’ve got a giant appetite for reading, and you’re a big fan of fantasy books like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. Would you say Reflection belongs in the same category as those books? How is it the same, and how is it different? And who would you say are the authors that influenced your writing and your worldview the most?
I’m actually not entirely sure if the Reflection series belongs in the exact same category as Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia because there’s magic AND technology involved in the fantasy world Yuetsion. So I would imagine Reflection would be aligned with the category of Fantasy and Sci-Fi mixed books.
There actually aren’t very many similarities, because in Reflection I’m introducing brand new fantasy beings, a new magic source (that is undeniably impossible to exist within the dimension that planet Earth resides in) and mythical creatures, all with different unique names, instead of the common goblins, witches, wizards, trolls, etc. I would say it’s somewhat like a mix between James Cameron’s Avatar (atmosphere/setting/mood-wise), Final Fantasy, some aspects of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth(atmosphere/setting/mood-wise as well).
As for the authors who influenced my writing and worldview of Yuetsion, you Will Johnson are most definitely one of them. You’ve helped me edit and improve the Reflection novel series very well, especially Book 1 of the series, which I greatly thank you for now and forever. Tony Diterlizzi’s Spiderwick Chronicles had some influence as well.
#7. You have some fascinating ideas for the artwork that could be included with Reflection. Can you share some of your ideas?
Sure thing, Will. I think it would be very cool if the series contained coloured pictures for the book covers and the pages within the novels that look like actual screenshots from a traditional 2D hand-drawn animated movie, my favourite kind of animation. If there is one form of a movie that the series could be made into it would be traditional 2D hand-drawn animation.
However, if the public would prefer to not have pictures in the Reflection novels and just use their imagination instead, that’s fine with me too, but maybe if the books are popular enough, I could try to get an art deluxe reprinted edition of each book with wonderful art, like traditional 2D hand-drawn animated movie screenshots. I’d love to hear the public’s opinions to help me decide if the books should have art like I described or not, but of course I don’t know if I can afford that art or not yet.
#8. We’re about to start working on soliciting agents and publishers, which is a daunting task! How do you feel? Are you excited? And what do you want people to know about Reflection, Phoebe and the world of Yuetsion?
I feel incredibly excited! I’ve dreamed about the creative writing making it out to the public since I was 14.
I want people to know that they’ll even gain understanding and awareness about autism through Phoebe, while being entertained at the same time by Phoebe and everyone and everything else when reading the Reflection series. I also want to let the audience know that I’ve made each of the main characters (who are all introduced throughout the first 3 books of the series) all relatable in different ways and at least one of each of them represent each of the different age groups: teens, young children, young adults, middle aged adults and elderlies (I gave the elderly people one of the coolest characters to represent them by the way).
And finally, I want people to know that when reading the Reflection books, they’ll be enveloped into a new and original massive wave of imagination, creativity, adventure and action within the world of Yuetsion and I’m really hoping the book will help people overcome their fears and gain hope.
The Literary Goon
http://literarygoon.tumblr.com/
November 7, 2015
"Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?" -Jennifer EganSo,
While I was working at the Booming Ground program at UBC a few years ago, I was paired with a high school student named Jordan Lefaivre, who was writing an ambitious YA fantasy series called Reflection.
Already hundreds and hundreds of pages long at that point, it was a pretty big undertaking. But I dived into his work, learning new alien words and memorizing the names of a variety of fantastical species, and together we started stream-lining the narrative and working towards getting it into a publishable state.
We’ve now worked our way through three full-length revisions and last week, when I handed back Jordan’s final report, I asked him whether he would be willing to answer a few questions for Literary Goon. I’ve agreed to work with him to try to find an agent or publisher for Reflection, and we figured this would be a good way to get his name out there.
Personally, I think this is a moving story that could be an important resource for young readers with autism and their families. Jordan has poured a lot of his personal experiences into this book, and engaging in Jordan’s world will give readers a sense of what it’s like to be autistic in a world that’s sometimes hostile and unforgiving.
#1. We’ve been working for a few years now on Reflection, which is about a teenage autistic girl named Phoebe Hope Jordan who gets kidnapped and travels into a strange new place called Yuetsion. I love this world, Jordan, and I associate it with all the great fantastical settings: Middle Earth, Neverland, Westerns.
I’m curious: when and how was Yuetsion born in your brain?
Well, thoughts on the story Reflection and its world Yuetsion formed in my mind starting when I was 16 or 17-years-old. It all started as an image of a young girl (later developed into Phoebe, a 13-year-old Canadian with autism) standing atop of this colossal compass/clock-like structure with its oversized hands spinning rapidly below her. It basically began as one fascinating scene in my mind and I just constantly built on the scenery. Then I built on a large story, an assortment of characters and an alien fantasy world inhabited by different mythical beings and creatures linked to the scenery.
By the way, I have put a scene similar to Phoebe and the massive clock-like structure into book 5, unless I’m convinced to edit the scene into something different.
To me, I envision building a whole story, especially something series-length, as a gargantuan puzzle with thousands of pieces. I create the pieces (the story, characters and world/setting), I start putting the pieces into place, (getting everything in proper order and connected), repositioning or shapeshifting the different pieces (editing) and not ending until the whole puzzle is 100% complete.
I started working on this project when I was 18. I first worked on a well-detailed summary of the whole story (which I originally planned as one big book instead of a series) and I didn’t want to start working on the novel until I was fully satisfied with the summary, to avoid having to re-edit large amounts of the novel or even change half the novel around. Once done, I wrote the whole rough draft of the whole book, which took hours of daily work for about 10 months.
Through you Will, I later on discovered that the novel, which ended up being about 300,000 words long and over 1,200 pages long, would be better off laid out as a series. For a short while I tried figuring out how many books I should split it into and which portions of the story I should separate. Then after I read The Spiderwick Chronicles, which had only 7 chapters for each of the 5 books, I decided to do what Tony Diterlizzi did, split the massive Reflection book into a 5-book series.
As for the name Yuetsion, like all the other foreign names I’ve invented in the series, I just looked at my keyboard, chose a letter to begin with and just created random yet proper assortments of vowels and consonants until I made a name with a nice ring to it.
That’s how the world Yuetsion was born into my brain and how I’ve constructed the world and everything else in the Reflection series.
#2. Phoebe is bullied at school due to her autism, and much of this narrative is about her overcoming her social fears and learning to trust people. I found her story really moving, and I think she’s a fascinating/inspiring character. What do you think readers can learn from Phoebe?
Well, I’m thinking and hoping readers can learn and develop a good understanding about life with autism from Phoebe’s character and to never judge a book by its cover, through Phoebe and other characters throughout the series. I’m also hoping that Phoebe can help spread autism awareness and understanding throughout the world, along with the different good morals that the Reflection series offers as well. Because I blended autism into an epic fantasy series, I think it could attract people’s attention.
About ½ to 2/3rd’s of her autistic traits are based off of mine and I gave her other autistic traits other people with autism could have. (Note: just because people will get to know her autism, doesn’t automatically mean they’ll know everyone’s autism 100% accurately. I mention in the first chapter of book 1 about how all people with autism are different and unique in their own way.)
#3. Your title is interesting, and now that I’ve read the book I can see that it has multiple meanings. I know that it’s tied into the idea of every person having a “uishanole” (I’ll let you explain what that is) but it also seems to be about Phoebe’s discomfort with her own image, her own reflection. Can you tell me why you chose that title?
I chose Reflection as the series’ main title because Phoebe is the uishanole, which means a “reflection” of someone from a different world or dimension. In this case, she’s the uishanole of Princess Vehilia and that’s the reason why the yuets (aliens) bring her to the fantasy dimension. It’s the main and only reason why she’s the protagonist of the series.
The readers will find out why the yuets, the beings of Yuetsion, need her due to her being the uishanole of Princess Vehilia when they read book 1. By the way, I really can’t wait to ask any possible future fans the question: which of the seven different yuet beings would they want their uishanoles to be? I’d ask after book 2 is published because that’s when the remaining seven yuet races are introduced.
I admit there are other aspects throughout the series that could tie into the title Reflection, but I made it so that its title is most definitely referring to and symbolizing Phoebe being the uishanole of Princess Vehilia.
#4. This is an ambitious, hyper-long project you’re working on. We’ve now whittled the first book down to about 53,000 words, but originally you handed in hundreds of thousands! And I know you’ve plotted out multiple books in the series. My question is: where do you find all the time? Does writing just consume you daily?
After graduating from high school, I’ve had a small part-time job. I haven’t been taking any college or university courses, which altogether really helps give me enough time to work on a creative writing project as big as the Reflection series. Yes, writing can consume me daily, but I do need to take breaks while I’m writing, to help my mind to not get too overworked and to help me to think clearly and write properly again.
#5. What have you learned over the process of revising and working on Reflection over these past few years?
I’ve learned to never rush through creative writing; otherwise the projects I work on won’t turn out as good. This helped me to come up with the phrase: If you rush it, you’ll fail it, but if you slow it, you’ll win it… unless you’re in a race.
Another thing I learned, is that if you plan on writing a series of books, the whole project could turn out much more improved or even better than originally planned and it could even save you a lot of difficulty if you write the whole series first (even it’s all written in rough draft form) before getting into publishing, as opposed to writing the first book, then immediately publishing it and then getting started on the second book after. When having the whole series written out before publishing, you have the ability to go back and forth in the series, making the story better and getting rid of any plot holes or flaws in the beginning, middle and end of the series, before the first book or two are published and too late to fix and improve.
The Reflection series even taught me to invent another good phrase to share like: “Don’t be shy, let your imagination fly… as long as it’s appropriate.”
#6. I know you’ve got a giant appetite for reading, and you’re a big fan of fantasy books like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. Would you say Reflection belongs in the same category as those books? How is it the same, and how is it different? And who would you say are the authors that influenced your writing and your worldview the most?
I’m actually not entirely sure if the Reflection series belongs in the exact same category as Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia because there’s magic AND technology involved in the fantasy world Yuetsion. So I would imagine Reflection would be aligned with the category of Fantasy and Sci-Fi mixed books.
There actually aren’t very many similarities, because in Reflection I’m introducing brand new fantasy beings, a new magic source (that is undeniably impossible to exist within the dimension that planet Earth resides in) and mythical creatures, all with different unique names, instead of the common goblins, witches, wizards, trolls, etc. I would say it’s somewhat like a mix between James Cameron’s Avatar (atmosphere/setting/mood-wise), Final Fantasy, some aspects of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth(atmosphere/setting/mood-wise as well).
As for the authors who influenced my writing and worldview of Yuetsion, you Will Johnson are most definitely one of them. You’ve helped me edit and improve the Reflection novel series very well, especially Book 1 of the series, which I greatly thank you for now and forever. Tony Diterlizzi’s Spiderwick Chronicles had some influence as well.
#7. You have some fascinating ideas for the artwork that could be included with Reflection. Can you share some of your ideas?
Sure thing, Will. I think it would be very cool if the series contained coloured pictures for the book covers and the pages within the novels that look like actual screenshots from a traditional 2D hand-drawn animated movie, my favourite kind of animation. If there is one form of a movie that the series could be made into it would be traditional 2D hand-drawn animation.
However, if the public would prefer to not have pictures in the Reflection novels and just use their imagination instead, that’s fine with me too, but maybe if the books are popular enough, I could try to get an art deluxe reprinted edition of each book with wonderful art, like traditional 2D hand-drawn animated movie screenshots. I’d love to hear the public’s opinions to help me decide if the books should have art like I described or not, but of course I don’t know if I can afford that art or not yet.
#8. We’re about to start working on soliciting agents and publishers, which is a daunting task! How do you feel? Are you excited? And what do you want people to know about Reflection, Phoebe and the world of Yuetsion?
I feel incredibly excited! I’ve dreamed about the creative writing making it out to the public since I was 14.
I want people to know that they’ll even gain understanding and awareness about autism through Phoebe, while being entertained at the same time by Phoebe and everyone and everything else when reading the Reflection series. I also want to let the audience know that I’ve made each of the main characters (who are all introduced throughout the first 3 books of the series) all relatable in different ways and at least one of each of them represent each of the different age groups: teens, young children, young adults, middle aged adults and elderlies (I gave the elderly people one of the coolest characters to represent them by the way).
And finally, I want people to know that when reading the Reflection books, they’ll be enveloped into a new and original massive wave of imagination, creativity, adventure and action within the world of Yuetsion and I’m really hoping the book will help people overcome their fears and gain hope.
The Literary Goon
http://literarygoon.tumblr.com/
November 7, 2015
Website Links to Additional Interview Blogs
http://www.inspirationmatters.org/Heroshow.aspx?name=Jordan%20T.%20Lefaivre&id=75&totalrec=8&Alpha=J
http://www.inspirationmatters.org/itemdetail.aspx?id=137
http://www.inspirationmatters.org/itemdetail.aspx?id=137