Author Sounds Like

           Finding words to describe what Diana Wynne Jones’ writing sounds like was and still is difficult.  Thinking about it originally, all I could think about was ‘magical’.  But this could describe many fantasy novels.  But there is one word that I have always thought of when I think of Jones’ writing, and that is ‘colorful’.  In fact, way back at the beginning of this project, when we had to bring in excerpts from two authors, ‘colorful’ is the word I used to describe Jones’ style. 

            By ‘colorful’ I don’t just mean that she uses a lot of ‘color’ words, which she does, but I really mean that her books are always vivid and picturesque.  Her style of writing paints a picture in the reader’s mind of everything they’re reading because everything is colorful.  The dialogues, the characters, even the plots themselves are colorful.  And Jones doesn’t do this just by describing things.  She doesn’t just say, “He had blonde hair and blue eyes.”  In fact, some of her characters’ physical attributes are barely described.  Instead, she uses the characters’ dialogue and actions to bring out their ‘color’ while making the settings very descriptive and literally “colorful.”  In this way, scenes are vividly painted in the reader’s mind.

            For example, this is an excerpt from Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle:

The rest of the castle had to be beyond one or other of the four low black doors around the room. Sophie opened the nearest, in the end wall beyond the bench.  There was a large bathroom beyond it. In some ways it was a bathroom you might normally find only in a palace, full of luxuries such as an indoor toilet, a shower stall, an immense bath with clawed feet, and mirrors on every wall. But it was even dirtier than the other room. Sophie winced from the toilet, flinched at the color of the bath, recoiled from green weed growing in the shower, and quite easily avoided looking at her shriveled shape in the mirrors because the glass was plastered with blobs and runnels of nameless substances. The nameless substances themselves were crowded onto a very large shelf over the bath. They were in jars, boxes, tubes, and hundreds of tattered brown packets and paper bags. The biggest jar had a name. It was called Drying Power in crooked letters.  Sophie was not sure whether there should be a D in that or not.  She picked up a packet at random. It had SKIN scrawled on it, and she put it back hurriedly.  Another jar said EYES in the same scrawl.  A tube stated FOR DECAY.  “It seems to work too,” Sophie murmured, looking into the washbasin with a shiver.

In this, there are clear examples of actual color-black doors and green weed. And there is quite a lot of description used to paint the image of the setting too.  But the only description for Sophie is “shriveled.” Yet, the reader can still get a clear image of her as she winces, flinches, recoils, and avoids because these actions are just so easy to see in one’s mind.  And they tell the reader something about Sophie’s character as well.  Plus, there may be only one line of dialogue, but it only adds to the image of Sophie that the reader is formulating.  It makes it all very vivid and definitely colorful.  

Presentation #2

Good:
Still seemed to know info
Got better with note cards towards end
Clear beginning, middle, end
Transitions

Bad:
Still hate my voice
Did worse with note cards this time
Wasn't as practiced
Need more eye contact

Author's Influences

Diana Wynne Jones wasn’t allowed to read many books as a child. Her father was a teacher, but he just didn’t want to buy books for his children. So it wasn’t until adulthood that Jones started to read enough to be influenced by other writers.  And when this time came, several authors were memorable enough to influence her.

            Jones admitted to being influenced by authors like E. Nesbit, George Meredith, and Joan Aiken. She even confessed that she admired Chaucer’s definition of a hero and applied it to her own works.  But the two most prominent influences in Jones’ writing were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.  Both were lecturers at her university, so she was able to be directly taught by them.

            Apparently, while C.S. Lewis was a great lecturer, Tolkien just wanted to finish writing The Lord of the Rings so he tried to scare away his students with really bad lecturing.  Jones, however, stuck around and was fascinated by his words. Jones’ sentence structure resembles both Lewis’s and Tolkien’s (although it’s closer to Lewis’s) and she admitted to having gotten the idea of writing about new worlds from both authors.  Tolkien, however, was the author who provided the most inspiration to her. He showed her that it was acceptable to write fantasy. She also listened, fascinated, by his lectures about taking a basic plot and turning it into something more.  This technique is clearly shown in the majority of her writing.

            So while Jones may not have been fortunate enough to read much as a child, she made up for it as an adult. She was given the amazing opportunity to be directly influenced by two of the greatest fantasy writers of the time. Such a strong background only increased the chances of her own writing becoming great.  

Presentation #1

Good: 
-Audience inclusive intro
-Clear beginning and end
-Knew info pretty well
-Didn't move around too much
-No ums!

Bad:
-I hate my voice (too bad I can't change this!)
-Used my note cards a bit too much
-Stuttered a few times
-Messed up with slides, should have fixed it w/o vocalizing
-Seemed to pause too long a few times

Author's Audience

Determining the audience of Diana Wynne Jones’ books was more difficult than it appeared. As I stated during our previous presentations, her books are read by both adults and children. She also specifically writes some books for children, some books for young adults, and some for adults. But even her so-called adult books are listed in the juvenile section of the library. And to add to this huge contradiction, the books themselves have complex plots and characters that just seem to be written for an older audience. Based on this mixed up information, I had to determine the intended audience of her books.

            Luckily, Jones, herself, answers this question always writing complex plots. In an interview, she stated that children don’t have a problem with complexity because they’re used to not knowing things. Adults, on the other hand, need simpler storylines.  So since all her stories are complex, we can safely assume that she’s writing for children.

            Her thoughtfulness in this complexity that she writes into her novels forms a unique relationship between her and her readers. She wants children to think about what they’re reading and analyze its meaning.  In fact, in a text analyzing Diana’s writing, Farah Mendlesohn even suggests that Diana wants her readers to become critical readers, taking reading to a new level for children. Not only that, but Diana has said herself that she wants her readers to learn something while reading her books. She even said she started writing children’s books because, “There were no books with real people in, with humor in, that told children what they need to know without preaching at them. So she set out to write these inconspicuously educational books.

            In her quest, she gained a large following of child readers, who probably never even realized that they were learning something while reading. Instead, they were just drawn in by the fantastical worlds written by Diana. Her readers continue their side of the relationship by continuing to read her books-even into adulthood. They also sometimes go even further than this and are always quick to defend her writing in any circumstance.

            For example, for some reason, Harry Potter is constantly compared to Diana’s books.  But her older readers are always quick to point out that Diana has been around much longer than J.K. Rowling.  However, Diana just accepted her readers’ support but didn’t seem to care much about the issue. She was probably just glad that someone else was managing to draw children into the wonderful world of reading.

            To back to what I said earlier, while connecting with her intended child audience, Diana’s books are also unexpectedly enjoyed by adults.  These unintended readers are brought in by the very complexity that Diana thought adults wouldn’t like. Her stories aren’t dumbed down for children, so adults can still appreciate them. Thus, Diana Wynne Jones’ audience ends up including both children and adults, intended and unintended.