Swimming Back to the Surface

This picture completely encapsulates how I've felt the past week. I've been drowning in all of these books I have to read but been too exhausted ( from being sick) to swim to the surface and make some progress on

them or anything else. But yesterday, I swam my way to the surface! I had to submit my research proposal for my semester long research paper in my English class. My Professor is all about having questions lead the writing. Which has been interesting because when I write, I like to write with the security of having an answer and the evidence to back it up. But, with a research paper, the point is the discovery--the journey of seeing what happens and going with the flow.

I'm not going to lie. I've been looking toward Monday the 13th with ever growing fear and dread.
The scope of what I could write about, literally anything related to YA Lit, is so large! I felt a little like T.S. Eliot's Pruefrock when he said,

"Would it have been worth while/To have bitten off the matter with a smile, /To have squeezed the universe into a ball/To roll it toward some overwhelming question," The Lovesong of J. Alfred Pruefrock 

Like poor Alfred, I thought it really wasn't worth while. So, like any good procrastinator, I balked and stalled until this afternoon, with 2 hours to go before my class. When it was sink or swim time. And on my walk home in a break, I frantically thought through all my previous ideas and managed to grasp a half formed thought! Of the books I've read so far this semester, Looking for Alaska, Feed, Thirsty, and Running Loose have been the books that I have struggled to connect with and enjoy the most. I wondered what about these books made me disconnect. I always thought that I didn't care if it was a male or female driven story as long as the story and characters were good. But then, I remembered that when I read a book with a male protagonist, it's usually third person or has a multiple narrators. And the narration in all those books was from the first person perspective of a teenage boy.

I don't know what it is about first person male narration that makes me disconnect, maybe it's due to the slightly more raunchiness of content, sometimes idealized view of their romantic interest, or simply just the difference in voice. Do boys struggle to connect with female first person narrators? I don't know. But it was shocking to wake up and see that, at least for me, whether I like a book and connect to it depends on the narrator, not necessarily the characters! Which made me curious about narration in general and then I came up with my question: What is the effect of narration on Modern YA fiction?

click to view a larger image

Later, I made a Brain-Map to get all of my thoughts out of my head and make sure that I can really write about narration, and I think I can! It's the only topic that, at least for the moment, has really captured my interest. My first draft is due in a month, so I think by Wednesday next week I want to have the majority of my research done so  I can start making an outline!