Run. Hide. Seek.

I recently finished a trilogy YA dystopian series set in Singapore (what more could I ask for) called Run Hide Seek. And to cap it all off, it's written by a 14 year-old Singaporean girl!!! I was strangely excited and floored and inspired when I found that out. I remember laughing out loud to myself on the train when I read this on my phone and whooping and shaking my head at the same time :) If she can do it, what more us adults? We really have no excuse now.

She is called Gabby Tye and her story on how she wrote this book is quite inspiring. She got this book together when her Mom made her to write 300 words a day instead of watching all this "online nonsense" and before she knew it, she had enough to make a book! Ok so her Mom is a publisher/editor, and is hence in the business, so you could argue unfair advantage, privileged background, but still - it's pretty something huh? She actually made something out of it, when many other privileged kids probably don't. Having written many stories since my childhood days and not having finished many long ones, I can tell you what she did takes a lot of perseverance, and her imagination was quite brilliant too.

Though the thick pages and more widely-spaced words take getting some used to, her story sucks you in right away as its always fast-paced, and written like an action movie. When I read it, the similarities with some other popular books/movies immediately struck me, but they are not complete rip-offs, more like a blend of Hunger Games meets World War Z meets Maze Runner meets Divergent. Yes, ALL my favourite movies/books. What’s not to like?!!🙂. When I was in a scriptwriting course this was an exercise my teacher taught us to generate fun, creative plot lines and ideas when we are dry – randomly pick two movie titles from a bag and try to come up with a logline blending them together. Eg I may pick Jurassic Park and Matrix. So a logline may be – the story of how a person is the chosen one to go back in time and save the dinosaurs, but he wakes up and it’s all a dream or an alternate reality. Ok I’m totally making that up but I’m sure that was how movies like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which my husband assures me actually works as a movie) were born.

Anyway back to the series. I’m quite fascinated by how she managed to weave in elements and plot points from all these stories, threw in some ideas of her own, and make a refreshing, whole new compelling kick-ass story out of it. Well done, girl *enthusiastic clapping* !!! Isn’t this what Korean dramas are doing? Pushing the boundaries of what is a genre and mixing genres (eg supernatural romance mystery thriller) to get a whole new product. And she ALSO landed a China book publishing deal where her books will be translated and sold in China, and go on to inspire a lot more young writers to be sure.
I am personally motivated from this to get my butt into gear (despite being a working Mom with 3 kids and church responsibilities) and to just do what she did – make myself write a certain number of words a day. Anyway all the writing books tell me to. They say the key to being a successful writer is discipline and habit, to write write write. And the stories will come. In a way, this blog helps me do that.

Ok what I liked about her book:

– how the heroine has something special about her (although I did think her personality could have been made more distinctive, where she could be sullen and protective like Katniss, or heck-care like Mary in a Christopher Pike book, or geeky and underdog like many other heroes in his book too)

– how there is a love triangle (ah, reminded me of how crushes feel!)

– her relationship with her Mom (I think she tried to be politically correct in her book, as her Mom is editor and she’d only 14!)

– the state of the future world and why it happened (themes of bad farming, environmental destruction, genetic manipulation, resonates with what I think is wrong in this world today and is what is refreshing about her book, that she brings in these themes in a layman and understandable, non-intimidating and non-yawn inducing way)

– how the action never stops, reminding me of Christopher Pike and Suzanne Collins’ writing.
That is what I am weak in – writing action. I may like reading action-packed books and have watched endless action movies, but ask me to write an action sequence and my brain just shuts down,. And if I’m forced to, like in my scriptwriting class, the writing comes out clunky and amateurish, and frankly, painful to read. I’m surprised my scriptwriting teacher (who came from Hollywood by the way – thank you Media Academy!) didn’t even comment on it. He wrote a lot of other comments though. Maybe he was laughing so hard he decided to spare me the pain. But hey, got to have the growth mindset right? With hard work and grit and laser-like focus, and the right training/teacher, I should be able to master it. If I ever need to, that is.
So, to the mattresses! Which means, let’s get cracking!