Take-home point vs. Preaching

I had an interesting conversation with Katie yesterday, about take-home ideas. After reading various blogs, articles and websites, I know “preaching” your viewpoint is a no-no, especially if it comes across as such to the reader. So regardless of my personal views, my aim has always been to tell a good story.

But Katie made me realize that there is a gray area there (she referred to it as a “take-home point.” Truly great literature is chock-full of take-home points (otherwise we’d have nothing to discuss in English class), and while I don’t pretend to be writing truly great literature, the subject material for this book can’t help grazing the scope of gender issues. It’s about a girl who plays football. AND her world is decidedly a male-dominated one.

More on this in part 2

Checklist: Updated

Ok, it’s officially mid-January, and I’ve completed the new intro (still need to tweak the opening paragraph, but what writer doesn’t keep tinkering at that), and I’m well on my way through the 4th chapter for the “regularizing” that needs to be done.

So I’m going to check the intro item off the list and add a new item:

-Find a way to loop dancing back into the story after using it quite a bit in the first half.