A Review of How to Grow Up and Rule the World by Vordak the Incomprehensible

The other three books I'm reviewing this week are all somber, medievalish European fantasies, but I can't resist throwing this one into the mix. It is, quite simply, nuts. And I mean that in a good way!

Meet Vordak the Incomprehensible, the creation of lesser mortals Scott Seegert (author) and John Martin (illustrator). In his first book, Vordak addresses young readers with aspirations of supervillainy and world domination, although he regularly reminds them that they will never actually be as great as he is because no one possibly can be!

Yep, Vordak is a megalomaniac. He dedicates the book to himself, for example: "To me, without whom not a single one of my glorious accomplishments would have been possible." Then, in addition to Acknowledgments (of a sort), he offers Condolences:

I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere condolences to any other authors who have the misfortune to be releasing a book this year. As you are well aware, there is only so much attention to go around, and my book will rightfully be receiving the lion's share of it. Just so we are clear on this, I don't want to hear any whining.

Vordak is an expert at the kinds of things kids who like video games, fart jokes, and books along the lines of Diary of a Wimpy Kid will greatly appreciate. Vordak really covers the bases, offering advice on everything from supervillain costumes to how not to talk to your arch-nemesis in clichés.

His suggestions about lairs are especially good, beginning with the "Starter Lair," AKA your bedroom. Vordak includes an "Evil Lair Gradual Upgrade Chart" to show how he began his own career by turning his bedroom into a lair (using saved-up birthday money), next remodeling a tree house (financed by money earned mowing lawns) before moving on to a converted garage (paid for by bagging groceries at Smart Mart). Oh, and then there's Lair #4, a Geosynchronous Doomsday-Class Orbiting Space Station. Vordak financed that one as follows: "Received $100 billion ransom from the League of Nations after threatening to use my inconceivable evaporation ray to completely drain the Atlantic Ocean."

Of course, Vordak has additional lair ideas, ranging from "The Abominable Abandoned Waterfront Factory" to "The Dastardly Deserted Amusement Park." He even offers readers "Four Signs You May Have Outgrown Your Current Lair." E.g., "You have to add a card table to the end of your Conference Table of Iniquity in order to seat everyone."

And wait till you see Vordak's take on superheroes. Here we get my favorite chapter title: "SUPERHEROES—Noble Upholders of Justice or Big, Fat, Stupid Jerks?" A running joke is that supervillains always put superheroes in "diabolically clever yet extremely slow-acting death traps." (Vordak complains that this tends to give the superheroes time to escape, but cites regulation 71b of the Superhero/Supervillain Official Rules of Etiquette.) Keep an eye out for the three reasons superheroes bother having sidekicks around, too.

Then there's Vordak's advice on writing ultimatums. Note that his author's bio states, "[Vordak's] previous writing includes his half of witty repartee with various Superheroes as well as numerous ultimatums to world leaders."

Seegert has a marvelous time playing with comic book, TV, and movie tropes about supervillains. He writes Vordak's voice with consistent arrogance, all the while keeping up a tongue-in-cheek tone. (Vordak reminds me just a little of Doctor Drakken, the main supervillain in the Kim Possible TV series.) The icing-on-the-cake touch to this book is that Vordak toys with his reader as he goes, pulling the kind of page-turn pranks on them that only a supervillain or an 11-year-old boy would dream up.

Considering the simplicity of the Vordak character's design (his face partly obscured by his evil helmet), John Martin's art is surprisingly effective. The illustrator depicts all manner of costumes and weapons and lairs, not to mention visual in-jokes, with clean cartoon lines, complementing the text perfectly.

Now, can you tell this is the kind of book you might be driven to read aloud to your relatives every few minutes, till they finally bellow, "Stop it! Just let me read the whole thing when you're finished, all right?"

With that in mind, I'll quit quoting already and point out that your 8- to 13-year-old son will probably get a real kick out of this book. And you might, too!

Note for Worried Parents: If you have a sense of humor, no problem. Because the worst this book could inspire your child to do is tease his sister for a few days and hang a few jokingly dire signs on his bedroom door.

A Review of Spilling Ink: A Young Writer's Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter

I haven't come across a "How to" book for kids about writing that has impressed me—till now. Spilling Ink is a chatty, informed, get-real look at writing by two children's book authors, and it doesn't waste time diagramming sentences and listing common spelling errors. Anne Mazer, author of series like Abby Hayes and Sister Magic, and Ellen Potter, author of books like Olivia Kidney and Slob, lay out what it means to be a writer and tell kids how to get the job done.

This book is written in a thoroughly reader-friendly style, with the two authors taking turns giving advice in a manner reminiscent of blog posts. Hayes and Potter know their stuff, and it shows: as a writer, I was pleased to see such good ideas expressed so simply, not to mention humorously. For instance, the chapter and section titles are often entertaining: "More Crawling Lizards, Please," "Truth or Dare," "The Robo-Narrator," and "Belly Buttons" are a few of my favorites.

Here's an example of the book's tone, from Ellen Potter:

Before I started writing seriously, I was under the delusion that "real" writers sit down and write out the entire story in one nearly perfect, spectacularly clever draft. Oh, sure, maybe they would change a word or two, or rename one of their characters "Nathan" because his original name, "Jake," reminds them too much of their cousin Jake who belches the theme music to retro TV shows. But that's about it.
Wrong!
Hugely, profoundly, utterly wrong.

This book offers up instructive analogies, such as comparing a story's setting to a mood ring, and useful techniques, such as "the chicken-nugget circle." The authors provide short writing samples to illustrate their points here and there, which is so much more helpful than mere explanations. A writing activity at the end of each chapter is called "I Dare You," e.g., "Write a scene about a circus, but make the mood dark and grim." These activities are so spot-on that they're practically a shock—I've seen far too many writing practice assignments in literature textbooks and workbooks at schools that weren't nearly as relevant as they hoped to be. (This could be because they were written by teachers, not professional writers out in the trenches. Sorry, teachers!)

A little of the advice in Spilling Ink reminds me quite happily of Anne Lamott's classic book of riffs on writing, Bird by Bird, particularly the Chapter 2 title, "Ugly First Drafts." That's an excellent adjective choice, as I'm sure those of you who are familiar with Lamott's famous chapter titled "Shitty First Drafts" would agree!

As is usually the case with nonfiction, the stories are the best part of the book. I would have liked to see even more of them, but then, I'm a story glutton. There are some good ones here, such as Mazer's account of her enchantment with those calendar kiosks that pop up in malls right before Christmas--illustrating how everyday observation can enrich a writer's work:

...[I] would stop to look at them, even if I was in a rush. There were calendars about outhouses, movie stars, barns, mountain ranges, duct tape, sunsets, puzzles, race cars, words, pigs, mushrooms, rivers, cows, knitting, clouds, state parks, and every type of dog in existence. Since each chapter in an Abby book begins with a quote from a fictitious calendar, the mall calendars inspired me into wild fits of imagination. I had great fun inventing calendars for Abby wtih names like the "Marshmallow" calendar or the "Daily Eyeglass" calendar or the "Supermarkets of New Jersey" calendar.

Other concepts are also explained charmingly, and, more important, clearly. The idea of letting your characters do their own thing and not over-managing them is tricky for many grown-up writers to understand, but Potter uses the idea of "Don't Be a Bully" to explain it. In fact, earlier in the book, she makes a brilliant point about character:

You need to know your characters' deep, dark secrets too, in order to convince your characters that they are alive. I know that sounds weird. I know you're supposed to convince your readers that your characters are alive, not the characters themselves. But if you take the time to get to know your characters well, they will start to think and act for themselves. You'll know this is happening when ideas unexpectedly pop into your head as you write. You'll suddenly know exactly what your character would do and how they would react to something. On the other hand, if you try and make the character do something they really wouldn't do, you might feel like your story is taking a wrong turn (see "Don't Be a Bully" in Section 7 on page 56).

Mazer and Potter share their writing process with us, as well, e.g., by showing how they brainstormed to choose the title for this book. What's more, they think of problems to address that other books about writing don't always pinpoint, such as "Avoiding the Mad Dash," that tendency to slap on an ending that young writers—and some older ones—are prone to. Spilling Ink even covers topics like journaling and working with a writing partner.

Matt Phelan's illustrations further add to the cheerful tone of the book, showing us sturdy young writers in spot art sprinkled throughout the pages.

Respecting their readers, Mazer and Potter make a point of saying that a young writer needs to find what works for her; the ideas in the book are intended as potentially useful strategies, not rules. This is an important distinction to make, and not all adults would have bothered to make it.

One of the book's best treats is the Appendix. Just when you think it's over, you find out that Anne and Ellen have interviewed each other in a section called "Spilling Secrets," which is full of fun biographical tidbits and a bonus slant on what it means to be a writer.

I've seen a number of boring books about how to write interesting books, which naturally struck me as ironic. But Spilling Ink takes its own advice: it's funny, specific, fascinating, and useful. I don't just recommend it to young writers, I recommend it to aspiring (and even published) writers who are in their 20's, 30's, 40's, and beyond.