Megan Brown's List: Picoult Paper Resources

Argument: Jodi Picoult's novels lack high quality elements.

Claims:
*Lacks depth into lives of bullies.
*Extraneous detail in minor characters
*'Overdoes' various parts of the book.

Evidence:
*"The relationship between Peter and his parents is given more space, but this could also have been examined more closely. Picoult appears to hold back from following up on the intriguing world she creates."
*"...the reading the novels unimportant details such as the side story of Alex Cormier. Her love life and marital situations do not relate to the novels overall ideas. Instead, the major details, like the personality of Peter's older brother and Peter's relationship with his parents at a young age, are left to the reader to fill in missing information--resulting in negative opinions of the book if the unknown doesn't go the reader's way."
*"This lack of awareness between the parents and child could have been squeezed for more material and this could have been brought about at the expense of editing out the less relevant musings of Alex Cormier, a judge and failing mother."
*"these parts feels bolted on and overdone, and have the effect of making the reader even more impatient for a greater insight into the thought processes of the bullies and victims."

Argument: Crime novels are more popular with predictability and familiarity.

Claim:
*Incorporation of real-life, modern controversies and societal problems.
*Authors are favored based upon who the conflict is between and how the conflict is established.
*A similar plot line is favored by readers and critics.

Evidence:
*“In the latter part of the twentieth century, the nature and scope of crime fiction changed yet again; most significantly, contemporary crime writers frequently began incorporating social, urban, environmental, political, and racial issues into their stories.”
*“...They favor authors who focus more openly on the conflict between authority and the individual, centrality versus marginality in terms of gender and ethnicity, and the law and its limits in a social system that is itself often viewed as corrupt.”
*“The predictability of this set of actions is regarded by critics as extremely appealing to audiences due to its promise of a restoration of order at the conclusion of the story.”
*“Continuing to draw their narrative strengths from established formulas of crime narratives, popular crime novels often follow a similar progression of events: an initial set-up, where the main characters and setting are introduced; the commission of the crime; the investigation; and final resolution.”

Argument: Writing novels requires a large amount of research and preparation.

Claim:
*Interviews with many real-life victims helps develop a realistic story line.
*Creating surprising endings makes books enjoyable.
*Character development is crucial for the creation of a story.

Evidence:
*"They were great. Those two really gave me the teacher's point of view. A lot of the details that you see in that first chapter, on the shooting, came from either the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office (Columbine) or from those teachers. I also spoke to a young man named Kevin Braun, who was a survivor at Rocori. His best friend was killed that day, and he was in gym class with the other student who was killed. He had never talked about this with anyone. He says—as I imagine you have heard also—that kids who were there know that there are no words for what happened, and if you weren't there, you'd never understand anyway, so why bother?"
*"In terms of the twist at the end, I often do that in my books. I'll have a twist, and I'll know it before I even write it. Because I need to be able to lay a paper trail for you throughout the book, so you can go back at the end and say, "What did I miss?" And of course, thematically, this twist is something you should be able to figure out."
*"Well, you know, I could have written the easy way out, and created parents who were horrible parents. Because everyone points a finger and wants to say, "Well, that's why this kid did it." Or "It's because of the games they were playing on the computer." "It's because of the music they listen to." "It's because of the comic books." There's always something to blame, and often the parents are the scapegoat. "
*"Lacy (the mother) is a really interesting character to me, because she's a good parent. She's actually a really good mom. But she winds up with the child who commits the school shooting. As a parent, how can you love a child who's done something like that? And also as a parent, how can you not? Being able to explore her was probably the most interesting part of the book for me. "