Der Buchwald

On characters

2012-01-19T06:11:00.005+01:00

The next segment I'm focusing on this year is character. There's mood and feeeeeling, which have to do with interiority, private interpretation, and voice, all of which are part of character portrayal. But then there's the bit about creating a character who exists apart from the plot events. I will freely confess that while I've read a lot of books where I like the story and feeeeel for the characters, six months later, I can't remember their names (and in really extreme cases, I can't keep two characters in one book straight). So--I would say that while excellent characters are probably a key point in making a book someone's best beloved--it might not be the sole criteria for selling a book. However, I want to write excellent books, not just moderately pleasing ones! So, two thoughts on characters that are not my own, but which I think are worth writing down and using when creating memorable characters:

1. Giving them some distinguishing "thing" that's all their own (from Christy Lenzi), something that exists quite apart from the plot at hand, and
2. Making sure that your principal characters contrast each other and complement each other (from Maggie Stiefvater). Not in a cliche or cardboard way--but some small way to signal to the reader who it is when they come up.

Some examples of these principles:

Anne of Green Gables--who could ever forget Anne? She has carrot-colored hair about which she's very sensitive, and she has a fantastic imagination that gets her into trouble.

Draco Malfoy, with his pale hair, pointed chin, and drawling voice. Actually, just about every character of Rowling's has something. Snape's greasy hair and silky, dangerous voice, Umbridge's horrible pink hair bow. Sometimes it's something visible and sometimes it's a way of speaking (hem hem!). But we know it's them!

DJ Schwenk--she doesn't ever say what's on her mind, even though a lot is.

Julianna from Flipped--the girl with the tree and the chickens

Crossley-Holland's Gatty--bad grammar but sees things true

Wizard Howl--vain!

Lord Teddie, from Entwined, for his posh and genial way of speaking, as well as Lord Bradford's kind brown eyes.

Mr. Malvern from The Scorpio Races, with his horrible tea mixture (tea, butter, milk, and salt--ick!!)

I realize these are examples for point 1 above, and I'm going to have to think some more on contrasting characters. Hopefully I can come up with some good examples and do a follow up post to this.

More on feeeeeeling

2012-01-06T22:45:00.002+01:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about these two posts, one by Mary Kole and one by Maggie Stiefvater. I’m told that my plotting and prose skills are up to snuff, but something I still struggle with is getting the reader to feeeeeel. (You may have guessed that by the number of posts on that subject lately.) I know Maggie is exceptionally good at this, and I know she does it deliberately, and after getting my library to buy a copy of her latest book (The Scorpio Races) and keeping it out overdue to study it, I’ve sent off for my own copy. Because this is something I need to learn, and seeing good examples of it while hearing people talk about it are all ways to get this idea into my brain. And I’m having some small insights about this that I wanted to record here.

1. Part of it is getting into your MC’s brain, and bringing the reader along with you. No secrets from the reader.*

2. Part of it is using words and phrases that fall naturally within the range of your focal character’s thoughts/world, but also (to paraphrase Markus Zusak), observations beyond the surface descriptions anyone could grab out of the top of their brain. An example from The Scorpio Races:

...But it’s not a bill collector. It’s a long, elegant car the size of our kitchen, with a tall, elegant grille the size of a dustbin. It has round, friendly-looking eyeballs with chrome eyebrows; its tailpipe breathes white puffs that creep around the tires. And it is red—not the red of the horse I saw on the beach yesterday, but red like only humans can imagine. Red like candy. Red like you’d like to taste or possibly paint your lips with.

Red, Father Mooneyham often remarks sadly, like sin.

3. Part of it is relating those turns of phrase to actual things in the setting/story where the reader is present. Example:

a) I was tired, and my eyes ached under my dry contacts.
b) I was tired, and my contacts felt like shriveled sausage slices on my eyes.
c) It felt like my contacts had become John’s overdone sausage slices from breakfast—shriveled and dead.

Not the greatest example, and somewhat overwritten, but—let’s assume that earlier in the story, John tried to make breakfast and it was a disaster. This reference back to something from the character’s actual world adds a layer of grounding to your story. It’s almost like a private joke between the reader and the character.

*Although I will add a caveat to that—sometimes you may pull off a narrator who keeps secrets from the reader, major ones—like in Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief. There are some…key facts, you could say, that Gen “forgets” to tell us for a good part of the book. But. It works. I think it works because even if he declines to reveal some major facts about himself, he isn’t keeping emotional secrets from the reader. We may learn new things about him at the end—but he doesn’t turn into a different person. We know his feelings and personality and outlook on life as much as we would have with that extra knowledge.

Character outside of plot

2011-11-23T16:37:00.003+01:00

I think plot is something that springs from character, and that the two are pretty much inseparable. So perhaps this isn't the most accurate title. But there's something I see occasionally (probably because I'm guilty of the same thing), and that is when a main character is not a complete, breathing person but an empty set of eyes to see the plot by. And this ties into how to make your reader identify with the character and feeeeel.

We want to make the main character sympathetic, right? One way to do that is to show them being nice to someone weaker than themselves. Another way is to show how other characters are worse than the MC. But it's not enough to feel sorry for your MC. Pity isn't the same thing as love, you know. Nor is an empty set of eyes. It's hard to love a character who just records events without being personally involved. The big question you have to settle for the reader first of all is, why would they want to hang around this character for 200+ pages? And to help answer that, you need to show who this character is. So imagine your character outside of the plot of this particular story. Who are they? What are they like when the bullies AREN'T around? What do they dream of, what do they want, what are their aspirations for when things go right? What makes them the most happy, the most relaxed, the most themselves? How are they good? You need to know (and show) those things so that when the plot happens, we have someone to love and cheer for. Of course you aren't going to want to explain all this before the plot starts--you need action and choices right up front, too. But it's important to weave in this sense of character early on so that you give your reader someone--a real someone--to cheer for.

More on character

2011-11-23T03:10:00.003+01:00

Just a couple of small writing ideas/observations before starting the craziness of Thanksgiving. Maybe someday I'll come back and develop them some more. For the moment, I just don't want to forget them.

1. Finding your way into a character's head/voice: set up a scenario (a waiting room, a park, a train station, etc.) and have two different characters write how they would see the place. The details they notice and the mood they feel and what the setting makes them want to do should be distinct from character to character.

I think, to make this a more meaningful activity, it would be best to do this with two characters who are more or less foils to each other. This might be your hero and your antagonist--or it might be two characters who have to work together but who are very--perhaps abrasively--different. (So--not just Harry vs. Voldemort, but maybe Hermione vs. Luna.) Doing this will help you figure out what is the same (ie how they connect) and what is different (ie where the tension comes from) between these two characters.

2. Making your reader feeeel. This is just one of my weaknesses, so I'm always trying to notice why a scene works in a book for me. Or in this case, a movie. One of the best scenes I've seen in a while is the one of Neville's speech in the last Harry Potter film. Just excellently done. In that scene, the audience knows something the characters do not, and yet, when you watch it, you feel extremely sad right along with them. Why? Because the camera doesn't just show you a tragic scene; it shows the characters' reactions to what they are confronting. Ginny's scream, for example. What Neville says and does, even though he doesn't have all the facts, sets the emotion for the audience as well. And, the best moment of all--the surprise (to the characters). The camera gives you both emotions--those of the good guys and those of the bad. They could have stopped with Voldemort's reaction, but they didn't--what carries the scene and makes it even stronger is the fact that they show Hermione's reaction as well. Just stating the facts of the case isn't enough if you want your reader to feel. When you know what your character is feeling, you cease to be an outside observer, and that character's reaction can pull you along so that you are inside the story. Then you as the reader will feel--which is what an author wants, right?

Making a character sympathetic

2011-11-08T20:31:00.004+01:00

The other night I picked up an old mystery to reread. Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey. She's not Dorothy Sayers, but I do like some of her books, and this one is my favorite. It's a cool setup that would make a good movie. Or remake. Or something. The premise is this: Brat Farrar, backgroundless orphan, returns from America to England and an actor spots him and is astonished at how much he resembles one Patrick Ashby of the horse farm Latchetts. One Patrick Ashby who supposedly threw himself off a cliff years ago because he couldn't deal with his parent's death. One Patrick Ashby who would be coming into his inheritance on his 21st birthday--in just a few weeks. Instead, his twin brother Simon will be filling that place. The actor proposes Brat return as Patrick, say he'd just run away that night (they never found the body, after all), and share the inheritance with him in return for some coaching. It sounds despicable--and yet, as a reader you find yourself cheering for Brat and not Simon.
Why?

1. Brat's got a conscience. He knows it's wrong, and it bothers him.
2. Yet he's got a deep, elemental love for horses, and the temptation to even just see Latchetts is strong.
3. When "his" aunt meets to identify him, he's exactly everything she ever wanted Patrick to be. And Brat, who's never had anyone like a true parent, can't help but love her. It's not money he wants--it's a desperate longing for a place and a family that's truly his.
4. We don't like Simon once we meet him! Brat loves Latchetts like Simon never will. He belongs there.
5. Brat's smart, but he keeps his thoughts to himself. But his longing for something he'd never considered comes through. Sometimes it's not what you say, but what you don't say, that reveals character.

And it goes on (in a spoilerish way, so I'll stop with that.) So interesting, though, how a good author can take even someone in a not very likable situation and make them sympathetic.

On dealing with managed creativity

2011-10-24T15:12:00.002+01:00

One thing creative people have to learn to deal with is pressure. Sometimes it can be a good thing, that extra edge of adrenaline that forces you to do more than you thought you were capable of. But sometimes it can cut creativity, and make you feel like Professor Trelawney, on being asked to produce a prediction on demand for Professor Umbridge. If you are in the arts professionally, this becomes quite a bit more of a concern, as you will have deadlines (sometimes unreasonably short!), and you will have to stick to them. For me, I know that I can be creative when I'm angry, when I'm sad, when I'm hurt, when I'm ecstatic, when I'm excited, etc. But the one situation I find it hard to be creative under is when I'm worried. Somehow, worry captures my subconscious mind and holds it hostage. I can see how, if I were caring for a family member in need, if I was facing serious financial issues and/or unemployment, if there was sudden illness or tragedy, and I had a sudden, short deadline looming--I might feel like my head was about to explode. I don't have a lot of answers here, but it's something I want to think about before it happens to me, since, by looking at others, it seems it does eventually happen to most people.

The one thing I know is that for me anyway, creativity comes from the subconscious. That's where all of the things that collect in my mind go to mix and simmer. It's when I'm relaxed and not quite looking straight at it that the ideas come to the surface. I can work with and idea forcibly once it does come, but that initial spark has to be there. So--I think that finding ways to relax, even in the midst of a crisis, has to be key. Maybe it's physically changing scenes. Going for a drive to look at fall leaves, visiting a city different from your own. Maybe it's doing something physical, like exercising. Maybe it's drinking in other kinds of arts--if you write, go to an art museum or concert. Read a ton of books, all on different topics. Remodel your house. Or maybe service is the answer--sometimes being stuck in your own head too long can be boring. Doing something for someone else and forgetting about yourself can remind you how people--how the world--works.

What about you? When you find yourself stressed and feel your creativity slipping away because of it--what do you do to get it back?

A postscript on feeeeeling

2011-10-15T14:48:00.002+01:00

The most important job--perhaps the whole goal of storytelling--is to make the recipient feel. No matter what other goals you may have--to instruct, to subvert, to convert, even to merely relate an event--if you don't make the reader/listener/viewer feel, you will never capture that person's attention enough for them to pay attention enough to your story. If they feel, your story will live. If they don't, your story is just a dry husk.

Just something to keep in mind.

Books I love and why they make me FEEL

2011-09-08T04:13:00.004+01:00

Continuing with the last post, I thought I'd take a look around at my bookshelves and note what it is about them that makes me love them. This is certainly not an all-inclusive list! But it does hit on some key things.

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle. One of the first books to impact me emotionally. Meg feels unlovable, yet it's the fact that she loves her brother that ultimately saves them both.

Scumble, Ingrid Law. The twisty feeling of wanting something so big and right, and yet, your own weaknesses are what stand in your way.

The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope. Kate's unflagging integrity really appeals to me--she's determined to look truth in the eye, no matter how painful it is. And the fact that sometimes, she thinks she sees the truth, when she really doesn't (ie how Christopher feels about her).

Crossing to Paradise, Kevin Crossley-Holland. Gatty has such a big heart, and she is so loyal--and yet, people don't see that. They just see a dirty servant. The contrast between what people see and what she is inside--and the fact that she tries so hard to do the right thing when no one else cares--really hits me in the heart. It makes me want to cheer her on. When injustice happens to her, I feel hit in the gut. When she gets what she deserves, it brings tears to my eyes.

The Dreamer, Lora Innes. This is actually a web comic, but the first volume is out in print, and the second one will be soon. It's very YA. Bea, the main character, shares her feelings rather dramatically, but what anchors the story is the bravery in the face of losing a lot that the 18th century characters show--Alan posing as a British soldier to steal her off a British ship, Knowlton leading his intelligence troops despite the danger that it might (and did!) pose to him.

The House of the Scorpion, Nancy Farmer. I'm starting to see a pattern here--this is another book with an underdog, a kid whose worth nobody sees. But he desperately WANTS to be worth something, and to be loved. He treats people the way he wishes they'd treat him. There are a few layers of innocence that come off, and it hurts, and you feel it as a reader. Which makes you love his triumphs all the more when they do happen.

So, things like self-worth, justice, loyalty, integrity, and courage seem to be important draws for me. I think this is why agents and editors sometimes either decline to name a genre they are looking for, or name one and then reject mss as not being what they're looking for. Because I think what anyone is looking for in a book is beyond mere genre. It's something at the heart of a book, regardless of whether it's contemporary or historical or full of zombie aardvarks. It's not always easy to define, but you know it when you see it, because it makes you fall in love.

Making the reader feel

2011-09-07T16:06:00.002+01:00

I stayed up late to finish Maggie Stiefvater's final wolves book (Forever), and because she does such a lovely job of making the reader feel for her world and characters, it made me want to analyze the whole feeeeeeling thing in books. I think many times you can have a book that has an interesting plot and you can have good prose--but still get the response from readers/agents/editors that "I don't love it enough." Obviously, some of this is subjective--I can think of well-written books that other people love that I find repellent, and vice-versa. But I do think there are elements that can help a reader feel more, and therefore love the book more. I don't think every element applies to all books simultaneously, but here are a few things I can think of:

1. Be inside the character. Like the character lets you be privy to intimate information s/he doesn't share with just anybody. (Think DJ Schwenk of Dairy Queen, who can't string two words together to anyone, yet we get to see all the depth of feeling she has inside her head.)

2. Be inside a character who is likable. A book may be interesting with an unpleasant narrator--but a book I LOVE has a character I love and want to have as a friend. Flawed, vulnerable, but with heroic potential. Obviously, what appeals to each person is slightly different.

3. Be inside a character who yearns for a basic, primal need. The thing that's at stake MATTERS. You could say that this just means high stakes (plot), but I think it's more a choice of how personal that stake is, AND how deep it is. I've been reading the screenwriting book Save the Cat! as well, and that's a point the author makes, too--what's at stake is a need on a gut level. Life. True Love. Etc.

4. One True Thing. Just knowing One True Thing might be enough for a highly literary book that kids have to read in school. But for a kid to LOVE that book, I think the character has to not just know, but GET--against impossible odds--that One True Thing. Like the notion of love and family in Harry Potter. It's not enough to see that there is life after death ("those who love us never really leave us"). What makes us feel is the fact that those dead love Harry enough to come back and protect him. The love Harry has for his friends/adopted family drive him to sacrifice everything to protect them, just as his own family did for him.

One more thought--in the midst of all this feeeeeeling, you have to vary things up a bit. You have to have plot happening. Sam and Grace have two primal problems, actually--both staying human so they can be together, and keeping the pack safe and alive from the likes of wolf hunters. So part of the story is having them on either side of a divide from each other, and the other part puts them together on the same side against a different problem. Having both of these issues going on keeps tension up, yet at the same time, gives the reader an emotional rest once they start feeling saturated. And, it's true to life. When is the last time you had one and ONLY one issue to deal with at a time? It makes the book feel more well-grounded in reality, which makes it more believable, which makes it easy to suspend disbelief and feel for your characters.

More on middle grade

2011-08-17T23:18:00.002+01:00

I was just rereading Eva Ibbotson's fabulous MG novel Journey to the River Sea this month, and noticed another element of many beloved MG books: justice. In this book, the main character is likable, interesting, positive--and meets with very nasty people who aren't any of those things, who she has to live with and deal with. Because Ibbotson makes you like her, you feel rather incensed at the way her distant relations treat her, and so when they get their comeuppance at the end, you feel the satisfaction of absolute justice. Same in James and the Giant Peach. James's aunts are cruel and abusive--and what is their reward? Why, they get run over flat by the giant peach as it rolls down the hill into the sea. As an adult, you may look at that and go, ew. But as a kid, let me tell you, you are CHEERING. Even Harry Potter, which from Goblet of Fire onward is, IMO, very firmly YA, there is a wonderful sense of justice. Gilderoy Lockhart getting "impaled on his own sword," as Dumbledore observes. And of course, Harry knowing things at the end that Voldemort doesn't about wands, and all of Voldemort's evil plans backfiring on him. Gordon Korman's Schooled (which takes place in high school but which is definitely readable by middle grade kids) has this happen again and again, as kids try to trip up the main character, bizarro Capricorn Anderson--and fail. There are a ton of great books out there that do this, and it is very satisfying.

I don't think it's because kids are bloodthirsty--exactly--but rather that they are often the victim of injustice because they are small. They have less power. They don't know how to point out the injustice. And, they see things more black and white. You can be more ambiguous in YA and adult, but MG is all about straightforward justice!

What writers can learn from film

2011-07-14T19:02:00.003+01:00

Like lots of other people, we've been on a Harry Potter film (and book) marathon at our house in anticipation of the final film. You should be able to guess from this blog that I'm a Potter fan, and I've just been fascinated by all the tidbits out there on the making of the films. I don't want to write screenplays and I don't have particular dreams of a book of mine ever being adapted for film. (Uh, if someday that happens, I'm not against it! But I don't think I've written a book that must become a film to this point, and really, books are my one true love.) However. Watching and reading about this stuff really sets off creative sparks in my brain. So here are some semi-random thoughts about writing that I've had from learning about film:

1. On adaptations. It's easy to get tied up in one and only one version. But it's actually possible to rearrange events and combine characters and still bulls-eye the heart of the story. Doubtful? See The Prisoner of Azkaban, book and film.

2. Atmosphere can change everything! Ever see the B version of a film? I don't just mean the basic acting on a green screen, where the background will be filled in via computer later. I was amazed to learn that you could film a scene and then change things like color and lighting afterwards. Remember the scene in Deathly Hallows part 1 where they're running through the forest and the chasers are after them? It's all very light in the original take. It's only afterwards that they darkened it and made it ominous. In writing, I think this whole coloration thing is voice. You can have the same plot events take place, but tell a very different story depending on your word choice or voice. The nice thing is, you can keep the basic events and try out different voices and tones and then pick the most effective one.

3. Likewise, editing. I'm fascinated by the fact that a person can be the principal actor in a film, yet have no idea what it's going to look like in the end. That's due to editing. Editing in film is I think a lot more of a creative process than in writing, where the editor is more of a guide and the author carries the bulk of the creative responsibility. In writing, the author does most of that. In both cases, a number of scenes are created, but in the editing process, you get to pick which ones need to stay in the final version, and in which order. Depending on what you show your audience, you can still tell very different stories. There's a lovely scene in Half Blood Prince that was cut (parts of it appear in the final film, but abbreviated) that would have revealed more about Snape than perhaps would be wise at this point of the story. Other times, a scene might be informationally or even emotionally nice (the exchange between Harry and Dudley in DH1), but a competing scene gets even stronger emotion across that has a longer-term effect for the whole story (the opening sequence as it stands in the final, with Hermione erasing her parents' memories). Those are hard choices, deciding which of two strong scenes to keep in. But getting them right can make all the difference in the world.

4. Feeling, believability, and loyalty. Rupert Grint is really an excellent actor, you know? He comes across as just a regular guy you might know from anywhere in real life, but he's really good at getting a range of emotions across in a way that you believe instantly and that you feel. As a result, you totally believe what's going on. You find yourself inside the characters' heads, wanting them to succeed. Obviously a lot of his method is film-specific; voice tone, facial expression, etc. In writing, you can't describe each tic of each facial muscle, or drip your dialogue tags with adverbs. What you've got to do, though, is somehow get inside your character's head and feelings to that same degree, so that when your MC is jealous, or depairing, or wildly in love, your reader feels that along with your character. It's a matter of interiority and voice and point of view. The way you do it in writing is different than in film, but in both, it's absolutely essential that you do it if you want your story to carry any sort of resonance with your reader/viewer.

What about you? Have you learned anything from film that translates to novel writing?

Books then and now

2011-07-05T17:41:00.005+01:00

I've noticed a funny thing while browsing YA at my local library (new to me for the past 11 months). It's a rural area and a lot of the books are a) old or b) self-published/from a small press. Also, the whole thing skews rather young, with books I'd definitely put in MG shelved as YA (and a few books that really are adult stuck in YA as well, for some reason). There's a new children's/YA librarian and the library's just had an addition put on, with more room to look for new YA and MG. So there's hope for change. But it does give me insight into how much it's all changed since pre-Harry Potter days. And just how writing styles and techniques can go out of style in general.

1. Length. Whoa. 200 pages used to be normal for YA. Now it feels like a taste. It's not that the stories themselves are any longer. But the old ones feel waaaaay summarized.

2. Which brings us to show, don't tell. Some authors have always been this way. But a lot of the quick reads from pre-HP days are really bad about this. Today, after HP and Twilight and the like, kids want to feel like they're really there--they want to feel that the story is immediate and all around them, not summarized from a remote position. They want to be inside the characters' heads, not observing from the outside. Point of view is really important in YA especially!! There are still authors who write the old way, who have been publishing for a long time and just have kept on doing the same old thing. But if you compare what is "hot" today with what was "hot" in 1990, it's not the same thing.

3. Please pick names that aren't dated--especially when it's supposed to be contemporary and you're using names from your childhood. For example, Will is a great name for a boy today. Bill sounds...um, a little 1950s/60s? I know, Bill Weasley! But they specifically have old-fashioned names. If you don't have a good reason like that...maybe check out the latest Social Security names list.

And finally, re: then vs. now: I recently ran across a post from a home schooler who seemed proud of never reading modern children's literature with her kids, only classics. I realize most people who stumble across this blog already love (current) books, and I also realize that schools are just as guilty of classics overkill. But you do realize this is the golden age of children's literature, don't you? That there are more high quality books on more varied subjects out there for kids now than EVER BEFORE? That many of these books ARE classics, and will be read many years from now? Has there EVER been a plot genius like Rowling? Would you really deprive your kid from the heart and wisdom of Kate DiCamillo or Ingrid Law or Cynthia Lord? Effortless Greek myths come back to life with Rick Riordan? The funny and frightening aspects of childhood and first love as seen by Wendelin van Draanen? Meeting tragedy with humor with Lindsey Leavitt? Meeting real kids from very different cultures through Trent Reedy? I could write pages and pages about all the wonderful books that have been published since you were a child that are filled with humor, wisdom, courage, heart, insights into other people, etc. Charlotte's Web is a wonderful book, but if you haven't read anything since then, then get thee to the new book shelf at your library. Talk to a librarian. Maybe let your kid pick something out that looks interesting instead of only letting them pick something off your classics list. Who knows? Maybe you'll find a favorite new author, too.

On being ready

2011-06-10T06:02:00.001+01:00

My children are taking swimming lessons at the moment. My husband is an academic, and we often move in the summers, and swimming is one of those things we’re a bit behind in. We’re finally in a place with a) a pool and b) an affordable swim lesson schedule and c) we are not currently moving. So we are jumping in with full force. They are all at the same pool at the same time, and I watch them every day as they struggle to learn what their teachers have planned for their particular groups each day. And it makes me think of writing.

The younger kids are in the more beginning levels, but they are more likely to listen to their teachers, more likely to jump in without fear, and less likely to worry about consequences. I was excited to see one of my younger kids throw her head and shoulders all the way in and really swim today—as opposed to the jerky, gasping, one-move-at-a-time action she’s done until now. That struck me as significant—if you’re going to swim—or write—you have to throw yourself all the way in. You have to immerse yourself in the story, and you can’t be self-conscious or worry about failure or things not working. You have to be all the way inside.

The older kids are having to play catch up, which isn’t easy. They are more conscious of their shortfallings, and it’s harder for them to throw themselves all the way in. They want to, but letting go and submersing themselves completely, letting go of some control, letting the water take them—those are hard things. They’re old enough to know that water can hurt you. They’ve had longer to learn and practice bad habits. They’re less likely to really internalize what the teacher says. Even as they desperately want to follow the instructions, their bodies have a harder time mimicking the right steps. Their minds want to take shortcuts, fill in things they know from past experience, instead of really looking at what they’re doing.

On the first day, my oldest woke up a little cranky, and said something like, “Mom, I already know all the swimming strokes. I just need to go to a pool and practice. I don’t need lessons.” While I agree that they all need more practice time, I don’t agree that he already knows everything. But don’t we feel that way as writers sometimes? We’ve been writing for so long. We KNOW to “show, don’t tell.” We KNOW to ditch the adverbial dialogue tags. We KNOW how a plot works. And yet…we get in the pool, and all the million things we know still don’t add up to effective swimming. Despite all our work and knowledge, it’s like we’re treading water. The individual parts of the writing are nice, but as a whole, they still don’t add up. Something is missing. Meanwhile, other writers swim right on past. I watched my older kids’ class spend two solid hours on surface dives. Two hours of belly flops. Thank goodness for patient teachers, because I would have been very frustrated after all that, and no change.

But here’s a beautiful thing. After all of that knowing and trying and failing, my oldest finally leaned over today and dove in perfectly. Somehow, all that knowing finally meshed inside him. All of those loose bits of knowledge finally connected, and he dove. It worked. And it will work with your writing, too, if you just keep at it.

Last day to enter

2011-05-31T15:16:00.005+01:00

Short notice, but there's a great interview up on Cynsations between editor Elizabeth Law of Egmont and author Allen Zadoff. Check it out here (and win a 30-page critique as well!).

My favorite books

2011-05-31T04:54:00.002+01:00

I just finished reading A Wrinkle in Time aloud to my girls, and afterwards we talked a little about favorite books and what makes them our favorite. My all-time favorite books would be A Wrinkle in Time, Narnia, and Harry Potter. My younger daughter (who is only six) says she likes realistic stories best—Penderwicks, Little House on the Prairie, etc. She likes stories where the people could really exist. While my taste runs more to the fantastical, I do agree with her on that point—I want characters I could almost believe are alive. So I started thinking about what else makes these particular books my favorites. A lot of books resonate with me, but these are ones I’ve read too many times to count, so they’re sort of a part of me now. And I think the common themes are

1. loyalty and love—of family, friends, etc.
2. personal sacrifice for others and/or things that are right
3. deep spiritual themes
4. magic/miracles
5. read-aloud-ability, and
6. a strong plot/storyline.

I’d add one two more things that make a book resonate with me as well: emotional honesty of the main character (this is what I like about DJ Schwenk in Dairy Queen--I find myself thinking about her as if she was one of the teens I've worked with in the past) and immediacy (this is what I like about Hex Hall). I don’t connect as well to books that draw too much attention to their structure, whether it’s so much attention to prose that it strangles the story, or a style of telling that keeps reminding the reader that it’s only a story, and I am the Narrator, so listen up, missy!

I don't know that my own writing lines up exactly with all of this--after all, most people read much more widely than they write, for practical time reasons if nothing else. But I do notice--after the fact--that a lot of things I write center around loyalty, moral choices, and family relationships of all kinds.

What about you? What makes a book your favorite to read? And how closely do the books you write come close to that?

Mulling over queries

2011-04-14T14:03:00.003+01:00

I think queries are about a hundred times harder than novels to write. First there's just boiling down your story to a few sentences. But then there's the spin you put on it. It's like having a loom with threads strung from one end to another. Each thread has a weight on it that you can move up and down. Or, if you like, it's like guitar strings depressed at different frets. All the same strings, but changing this changes the pattern, changes the tune, gives you a different impression of what it's all about. And I'm convinced that every single person you ask to read it will want a slightly different tune. Sometimes this is to your advantage, because you can stress slightly different aspects of your book to appeal more to different people you may be querying. Sometimes it's frustrating, like if critique suggestions turn it into an entirely different story than you ever meant to tell, or if they strip out all the voice you wrote into it, or substitute the critiquer's own voice. That's the hard part about queries (and about critiques in general)--sussing out the things that will make your writing stronger versus the things that will just make your writing different.

But aside from that issue is the issue of getting the right information into your query. I used to think that a query should be mysterious, not give away too much, and therefore make an editor/agent HAVE to request to read on. Well, you do want that response, but a vague, mysterious query won't do it. You have to give away some of what happens in the book. Not the ending, no--but you HAVE to specifically talk about something that happens on screen, in the active running action of the book. Miss Snark had one model of the query on her blog (she said there were many ways of writing one, and this was just ONE way--so don't get tied into fitting it exactly):

X is the main guy;
Y is the bad guy;
they meet at Z and all L breaks loose.
If they don't solve Q, then R starts and if they do it's L squared.

So basically, the first two lines are about defining your main character, what s/he wants, and what the opposition (human or otherwise) is about. People usually do pretty well here. At least, I find this part a little easier to write. How much attention you put on this depends on the kind of book you have (slice of life vs. high action, etc.). But all this is setup/backstory. It is not enough to end your query here. You can't just include this and then a mysterious line about the genre or danger or whatever.

The part that gets harder, though, are the last two lines. I think what line 3 means is that you have to actually reveal the specific action your character takes that starts to complicate things. Maybe that could be the inciting incident, what sets of the motion of this story (as opposed to the backstory/setup). And the last line? That would be the complications of taking that action, the next choice/situation it forces on the MC, and the possible complications resulting from that second action.

See? No spoilers--we aren't anywhere near the end of the book yet--but there's still an open-ended situation to intrigue a potential reader. It lets you know the genre and the specific plot of this book--as opposed to all the other books in this genre. So if you can figure this out, I think your query will be ever so much stronger.

Then you can send it to your critiquers, who will all have a different take on the tune, and worry about the first part all over again.

Voice workshop parts 3 & 4

2011-03-20T05:43:00.003+01:00

Day 3: Emblanding

We each picked a passage and rewrote it to remove the voice. That was interesting. We noticed that a good deal of our emblanding had to do with removing the show and sticking in a telly summary, instead. Also, it involved taking out all the interesting phrases a character might say and using generic language in its place.

Day 4: Rewriting our own stuff

This was by FAR the hardest part of the week. We had to take one of our own passages and rewrite it to jack up the voice. Very hard! I think it would almost be easier to start over from scratch and write something new and voicey than to fix something that’s not there. Which is probably why editors say they can work with an author on plot, but not on weak writing.

Overall it was a really good experience. I think with something like this, it's not enough to just sit in rapture at the feet of an expert. This is the kind of thing you really only learn by discussing and doing.

See other takes on the workshop from other members of the group:

Sandy Carlson (starting with her introduction)

Voice workshop part 2

2011-03-20T05:34:00.002+01:00

Day 2: Samples

We each found passages from published books and analyzed them for what made them voicey. For copyright reasons I won’t post all the passages here, but we had selections from the following fabulous books:

Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr
Junie B. Jones is (Almost) a Flower Girl, Barbara Park
The Tale of Desperaux, Kate DiCamillo
Sharp’s Rifles, Bernard Cornwell
The Midwife’s Apprentice, Karen Cushman
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling
Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Just Take My Heart, Mary Higgins Clark
The True Meaning of Smekday, Adam Rex
Scumble, Ingrid Law
Crossing to Paradise, Kevin Crossley-Holland
London Calling, Edward Bloor
The Star of Kazan, Eva Ibbotson
A Curse Dark as Gold, Elizabeth C. Bunce
Rules, Cynthia Lord
Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens, Brandon Sanderson
Palace Beautiful, Sarah DeFord Williams

And a couple more we didn’t discuss but which have strong voice:

Dairy Queen, Catherine Gilbert Murdock
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
Flipped, Wendelin van Draanen
The Underneath, Kathi Appelt

What I learned from these—ie, what gives them voice:

--specificity of language

--language that that character would know

--concerns that character specifically would have

--sometimes, what is NOT said as well as what IS said

--sometimes, the dialogue/interaction between two characters

--sometimes, the irony of the real situation and what the character believes is reality, causing humor or a surge of pity on the reader’s part

--surprises

--turning a known story or phrase inside out

--depending on tone of story, making narrative sound more like dialogue (specifically, how a certain character would talk, even if it’s rambling)

--tells you something about your POV character, even if it’s technically while advancing plot or describing setting

--uses strong, exact, meaningful language, with a preference for nouns and verbs over flabby modifiers. (Some modifiers okay, of course—but used in moderation)

--more attention paid to the right words for the right character/situation than to a prescriptive set of rules (ie you can see things like “a bit” and other “weak” modifiers in some of these examples—but for this specific setting/character, they are the RIGHT words to lend character)

--Rhythm can be important, showing how quickly time seems to flow for the character (whether they want it or not). It can make you HAVE to read a book out loud. It adds to mood and character.

--Sometimes books stick very close to the characters' voices so that you are in their heads, as if it is really happening. Other times, the voice is more of a whole-book emphasis (like the Appelt or DiCamillo examples), where the point is to gather you up and tell you a story, as if someone is orally relating this to you, and the whole experience--storyteller plus story plus listener--is what's important, not *just* the story.

Voice workshop! Part 1

2011-03-20T05:29:00.005+01:00

My critique group has spent the past week doing a workshop on voice. At first we were hesitant to do this, as none of us feel particularly expert. But we decided to forge ahead, and I think we’ve all learned a lot. I have, anyhow! Here’s an overview of what we did, and some of the things I learned in the process.

Day 1: Definitions.

Read and discuss articles that ARE written by experts on what voice is and how you develop it. Here are links to the articles we read:

Editor Caroline Meckler on voice: http://tabwriter.blogspot.com/2008/12/voice-giving-us-voice.html (EXCELLENT, clear definition of voice and its aspects--read this first)

Editor Martha Mihalick on voice: http://christyscreativespace.blogspot.com/2008/04/martha-mihalik-editor-at-greenwillow.html

Verla Kay discussion: http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=45917.0

Margot Finke on character voice: http://www.underdown.org/mf-powerful-voice.htm

Cheryl Klein on voice: http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2009/03/faq-9-i-think-questions-about-voice.html (and read the comments, too, because there are some good ideas down there)

And an interesting writer's take on critiquing voice: http://katieganshert.blogspot.com/2010/08/dont-take-my-voice-away.html

http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-is-writers-voice.html

We concluded that there was such a thing as author voice, and also such a thing as character voice. Author voice is like your face. It’s YOU. The YOU-ist You you can write. Character voice (or even different kinds of voice for different books) is like different clothing or hairstyles. People will react to you differently and expect different things from you based on how you look, or what kind of voice your book has. It’s important for your characters to all have their own voice.

Strong, exact nouns and verbs tend to be important for voice.

Voice is rooted in character.

You can have such a thing as strong voice and yet not everyone will like it. Voice subject to taste.

Voice helps you get inside a character’s head. The more in a character’s head you are, the more you feel, which usually affects how much you like a book. (Of course, if you find the character annoying, you might not want to stick around. Like I said, it’s subjective.)

To see what others in my group have to say about it all, check out the following blog:

Sandy Carlson, starting with this post.
Jaclyn McMahon's take here.

Prime Real Estate

2011-02-28T15:33:00.003+01:00

Here we go--an agent's discussion of Prime Real Estate in your novel, by Mary Kole! READ THIS.

The most important point in here is this: The prime real estate in any novel is: the first page of the novel, the first paragraph of a new chapter, and the last paragraph of a chapter.

Emotional impact and prime real estate

2011-02-06T02:36:00.002+01:00

Serenissima over at Verla Kay’s boards came up with a really great way of thinking about what you should and should not put in your first chapter. She calls certain places “prime real estate,” ie, places your reader expects certain key information to appear. The things you put on that prime real estate—the characters, problems, settings you choose to introduce here—become a sort of promise from the author of what to expect in this book. This means that if you put it there, it had better be important over the course of your novel. If you point out a gun on the fireplace, it had better go off in your story. If you devote five pages to a character who only disappears, never to be mentioned again, your readers will feel you have broken trust. If you don’t hint at (or blatantly plant) your main concept there, the reader will be confused as to what the main plot is. Things like that. I love that phrase, “prime real estate,” because it really highlights how to set up your key parts of the story right from the beginning.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what makes a book beloved. Is it because it’s well written? Certainly. Is it because the plot is thrilling? To be sure. But I don’t think those are the most important reasons a book becomes beloved. I think it’s because of how it makes you feel. It’s the soul of the book. And most people want a book with a soul they can identify with, a character to be their friend as they navigate all the emotions that come over the course of the story.

Here’s the thing: different kinds of book souls appeal to different kinds of people. You’re not going to write one that will universally appeal to everyone.

However, I do think it’s reasonable to say that readers want to feel sympathetic toward the main character. You might be fascinated by a cruel or insane character and feel compelled to read on, but I’m not convinced that people reread say, Crime and Punishment as lovingly as a book like A Wrinkle in Time. People love Tolstoy’s Levin (shy, somewhat bumbling, but searching for answers), but er, Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov (a deluded axe murderer) not so much. What exactly makes a character sympathetic varies a bit—believability with regards to the reader’s experience, someone who doesn’t lie to the reader, someone who is vulnerable yet acts—those are all things that generally tend to appeal to readers.

Once readers bond with that main character, they want to feel right along with him/her. They want to feel the bite of disappointment, the sting of betrayal, and the victory of rising above challenge. They want to live through that character for just a little while. People don’t care much about a book if they don’t feel much. You’ve got to make them feel. I think that’s why some books, even if they break down in other technical areas, can still be beloved if they succeed in this one area. (Cheryl Klein talks about this a bit.)

Back to the idea of prime real estate. What, then, do you want to do in that all-important first chapter? You want to make your reader bond with your character, right? So think about this. What kind of emotional impact are you greeting your reader with? What emotions are you putting in that spot of prime real estate? If you are getting responses that people are not connecting with your book, take apart your first chapter. For every scene, write down the emotional impact you are trying to achieve. Anger? Resentment? Pity party? Are you trying to create fear or disgust?

Does your reader know your character enough to begin with to take your MC’s side in this?

If you met a person or came upon a situation charged with this emotion, without knowing anything about him/her/it beforehand, would you want to stick around? Or would you decide it was none of your business, and leave?

Think about how you lay in your emotional impact over that first chapter. Spend your real estate investment wisely.

Show vs. tell

2011-01-18T20:48:00.001+01:00

I really enjoy critiquing. Yes, it's work, and I can't always do it--I have to weave it around my own writing, not to mention my Real Life. But I always learn something from doing it, and I always love seeing glimpses into such different worlds. I've just done three crits outside of my normal crit group rotation, and once again, I'm struck by how different and unique each person's writing is.

One thing the crits made me think through was when it's appropriate to tell, and when it's better to show. I think sometimes writers get a little too uptight about The Rules, as if they can NEVER be broken, ever. Eradication of adverbs! No dialogue tags except for "said"! Never tell, always show! In general, most of the time, those are good things. But I don't think it's 100% bad to use an adverb! Or to, once in a book or so, let someone snarl instead of say a line. The telling-showing thing is most on my mind right now. Here are the kinds of things you should probably show in your writing:

--key plot movements
--key emotional points
--scenes that show decisions, changes, or character growth
--scenes that show important aspects of the relationship between characters

This is what I think telling is good for:

--transitions

As for the passing of time in a book, I think you need a mix. A small, specific, showing instance to sort of stand for all the other instances you aren't going to show. Besides, text on the page = passing of time in the text world.

Something that really helps necessary telling go down well is voice. If you can "tell" in the voice of your POV character, it just slides down like syrup. Rachel Hawkins's book Hex Hall did a good job with this, I thought. The voice let her tell the transitions and skip ahead to all the interesting parts she wanted to show us. And of course, JK Rowling is brilliant at balancing the two as well.

Second Sight, by Cheryl Klein (review)

2011-01-08T17:44:00.002+01:00

Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, Editing, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults
By Cheryl B. Klein
Asterisk Books, New York, 2011

A review by Rose Green

Second Sight is a collection of talks and workshops and blog posts on writing by Cheryl Klein, editor at Arthur A. Levine, an imprint of Scholastic. Some of these talks have appeared on her web site, and others not. Here they are all collected into one handy resource. If I was leaving the country and could only take a handful of books with me, I would include this one. It’s the single most practical writing book I’ve read.

What this book is not: an introduction to writing and/or children’s publishing. It will not tell you the standard format for manuscripts, nor will it tell you how to write a bestseller. It will not tell you how to get rich “like that woman from England who wrote a book” or how to get on Oprah. It has very few examples from adult books--with the exception of Aristotle’s writings, which should tell you something about the depth and seriousness with which Cheryl regards children’s literature.

Who this book is for: the intermediate to advanced writer, preferably someone who has already completed (or at least is deeply into) a first draft. There is definitely a hole in the market for books for intermediate writers, the ones who are past the introductory stages of how a book is put together but who don’t yet have an agent or editor of their own to guide them. It’s full of practical suggestions for deep revision, for finding those “electric fence emotions” (as she describes the raw feelings of middle school) and pulling them forward to connect with readers in a real, believable way. The book itself is written with authority; not just because of Klein’s editor hat, but because she herself is an excellent writer, particularly gifted at pinpointing and expressing plot structure, voice, characterization—in short, the underpinnings of a novel.

Some topics covered in the book: The Annotated Query Letter from Hell, back to back with an example and discussion of a good (real) query and why it works. Deep discussions of character, plot, theme, and voice. An excellent tutorial on how a picture book is put together, complete with a sample storyboard (which my daughter had me read to her--twice). An entire chapter detailing the editing process of one of her author’s books. (Note: if you think all the revision is over once you sign a contract, this chapter will be very eye-opening!) A revision checklist for writers. And more. If you are most concerned with getting the emotional heart of a book right, whether serious or funny or whatever, this is the book for you.

The only warning I need to give is that you may find yourself stopping often to put the book into practice. As I was reading it, I also happened to be revising a first draft of a book of my own, and found myself diving back and forth between my draft and this book, making notes and thinking through character arcs. So, bring a pencil when you sit down to read!

Second Sight will be available in February 2011 and further information about ordering can be found at Cheryl’s web site, www.cherylklein.com.

Writing bad guys

2011-01-02T01:49:00.003+01:00

Just something I tried out this time. Think of a person or a kind of person who is a good guy for you. Someone you'd really trust and who you look up to. Now imagine that person gone bad. Everyone has choices, you know? And just because you start out as a good person doesn't mean you can't mess up. We all do--but of course, some people decide to fix their messups, and some don't. So imagine that good person, only soured, and you'll get a great bad guy.

Things I've learned lately about writing

2010-12-28T16:41:00.002+01:00

1. Personalize queries. You hate getting those impersonal forms back, right? You love it when it sounds like there’s a real person at the other end, right? Well, do the same thing in your queries. (If you don’t know how to personalize something because you don’t know anything about that agent, well…maybe some homework is in order.) (Although true, if someone is extremely new, it can still be tricky.)

2. The plot development of everything jumping sideways. I forget whose blog I read this on first—but the idea is that somewhere after your inciting incident, when you’ve got your character moving forward and doing things—something completely unexpected happens that throws your MC’s plans in a different direction. (Yes, it still needs to fit logically within the book, at least if you have all knowledge, as the reader should by the end.) They discover a new element they hadn’t realized. They learn something new about someone that changes things. Etc. The book I just finished and am now revising was based on this idea, and I really like how it turned out. Plus, it keeps the plot from being stale: And then we went on a long, long journey to destroy the magical artifact that wanted to take over our minds. And then we battled the dragons in the way. And then we walked some more, so we could destroy the magical artifact. Etc. Boring! This technique livens things up beyond just a long, slow trudge to the end.

3. One model of worldbuilding involves laying out magical or real world skills/situations that, in the time of climax, your MC can use. Ie, the solution comes from the extraordinary tools the character already has rather than those skills just being window dressing. This idea is from a fabulous essay on magic systems by Brandon Sanderson (see my previous entry for a longer discussion and a link).

4. Piggybacking off of this idea is my own that if you make a character’s weaknesses become tools they can turn inside out and use as solutions in the end, you will give them an even sweeter victory.

5. Or, you may choose to take the Austen plot approach, discussed by Cheryl Klein, where the MC, in wanting something very much, acts to get it but doesn’t have the full knowledge they need. So they end up complicating the plot themselves, making the situation worse for themselves, to the point where part of the plot becomes solving that very problem. I think that characters’ actions should cause plot complications.

6. It’s always best to write those scenes that emotionally pin your work when they’re hot in your mind. A book I wrote and rewrote many, many times has one scene that is virtually unchanged from when I first set it down. It’s the one scene that readers (including hardened agents) respond to every time. True emotional punch is stronger even than lots of pretty word polishing. You can always polish. You can’t always catch that feeling.

7. When stuck on your revision, write a new book. Even if it’s completely unrelated, that new book just may teach yourself something about the old one. Mette Ivie Harrison has commented on this before—I believe she writes a whole new book before going back to revise the last one. Not sure I can write quite that fast, but even just starting a new one opens up new ideas in my head. I highly recommend it if you’re stuck!

What about you? What things have turned on lightbulbs for you in your writing lately?

On endings and payoffs

2010-11-22T15:56:00.003+01:00

I've been reading Brandon Sanderson's middle grade action/adventure/humor series, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, to my kids. We just finished the third book, and I'm still taking apart the solution/payoff to that last book in my mind. (For those who have read it, the Himalayan kickboxing scene.) The books are funny and seemingly chaotic and rather chatty--which drove me crazy the first time I read them, but somehow on subsequent reads I've become very much hooked. The thing is, they're not chaotic at all. In the midst of all that seeming chaos and chattiness are actual plot points and character clues.

Sanderson's known for his intricate magic systems--and while this book is meant to be light and funny, the same skill shines through here. To get to that kickboxing scene, he had to use stuff he planted over the course of at least two books, things that seem completely unrelated and random. But just as Alcatraz learns to power his Talent (the unusual ability to break things, sometimes spectacularly) at a distance and to conduct it through other material, Sanderson does that with plot/structure. Somehow you get to the climax and find everything's lined up, and all Sanderson has to do is activate it. The solution is a surprise and at the same time, it's been there all along. Plus, the payoff is great regarding the characters. It's really extremely well done!

Because I'm trying to set up clues and solutions and a payoff in the book I'm drafting right now, I naturally started analyzing this. I hopped over to Sanderson's site and found this fascinating essay on magic systems. The thing is, though, it doesn't just apply to magic systems. It's really how he deals with plot.

Basically, there are two ways to look at fantasy setups and solutions. One (what he calls "soft magic") uses the magic as sort of atmosphere, and the plot solutions come from real things anybody could do, magic or not. The other, which he calls "hard magic," is where the magic rules are laid out very clearly, like tools, and the MC uses the tools at his/her disposal (ie magic we know about) to solve the problem. The point is, instead of springing new, surprise powers on the MC in their time of need, the MC has to scramble for whatever they've got on hand. Like the here-are-five-ingredients-now-make-a-gourmet-meal-of-them sort of show. So the ingredients aren't a surprise, but the final outcome is. Which is very satisfying.

What I'd add to this is that if the tools you combine to solve that problem are actually past failures, the payoff is going to be even sweeter. So, take the first book in this series. Alcatraz has gone from foster home to foster home, pushed around and abandoned because he always breaks stuff, and people can't take it. But then, he learns it's a Talent--and so when he uses it to solve a problem, it's a triumph. Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson does this, too. He goes from school to school, always having problems because of his ADHD. And then--it turns out he has this because it's all part of his half blood survival makeup. It makes him good at fighting monsters. Those are sort of along the way sorts of developments, but think of how Harry Potter finally defeats Voldemort. (Um, hopefully this isn't a spoiler to anyone...) He uses the spell everyone gets onto him for, the spell he's always used instead of killing someone, the spell people sort of think is a weak copout. (Actually, HP uses both hard and soft magic for the ultimate climax--the first part of Harry's confrontation explicitly doesn't involve magic at all. The combination of both of these, I suppose, sort of makes it the amazing adventure/fantasy/human story it is.)

So when you're looking for ways to solve the problem you've painted yourself into, take a look at what tools your MC has built up over the course of the book. Look particularly at their failures. What new and surprising--yet inevitable--solutions can you come up with based on these tools?

WIP

2010-11-15T03:20:00.004+01:00

Mostly I record general things I'm learning about writing on this blog, or reflections on literature, or other book-related ideas. I don't just talk about writing, though--I actually write as well. I'm quite excited about my current project. I am not a superfast writer (I have five small kids, for starters), but I'm making good progress. It's a middle grade action adventure book set in Idaho, and some of the research I need to do involves the Large Hadron Collider. Fun, huh? My 10 year old tells me that for a book to be truly good, it needs at least five explosions, so I'm trying to work that in as well. I figure he should know, being the target audience and all.

When I was small, I used to be sad that somehow my sister ended up with an imaginary friend, but I never had one. Now I realize that I may have been premature in my assumptions. It's always exciting to realize it's not over. I love the characters in my other books, but it's always fun to meet new ones, and to realize that that magic process of bringing them to life is a repeatable one.

Illustration portfolio

2010-11-10T15:16:00.004+01:00

There is always a lot of confusion about illustrations among people who have just gotten the idea to write a picture book. Just so you know, you do NOT submit your work to an editor or agent along with pictures. You do not need to draw your own, get your child to draw for you, or hire an illustrator yourself. This looks horribly amateur and clueless. It is not how the industry works. The illustrators are professionals who have actually gone to college and gotten a degree in illustration and design. They make a living at this. If you don't think you could make a living at illustration alone, then that should be a sign to you that you should not attempt your own illustrations. What happens with real books and real publishers is that you submit your picture book text to an editor, and assuming they like it and buy it, you do some rounds of revision with the editor and then they pair your text with an illustrator that THEY hire. Illustrators, you see, send samples of their work to publishers they'd like to work with, and when an art director likes it, they'll keep it on file and when the right text comes up, the publisher will pair the two.

Now, let's say you ARE sufficiently skilled to do your own illustrations, whether you've been to art school of some kind or not. I still see people posting portfolios on line that have seriously, nothing to do with children's illustration. It's a bunch of stuff they drew in art school, and maybe it was appropriate for the class they took, but it's not targeted to a children's book publisher. Allow me to direct you to a fabulous post on what you SHOULD include if you want to build an attractive portfolio for children's books. Jennifer Laughran is an agent at a top agency specializing in children's books, and she knows of which she speaks. Listen to her and learn! :)

Why you should not fear editing

2010-04-19T18:43:00.003+01:00

Occasionally I admit to people I know that I am a writer. Generally this is either because I can sort of tell they must be kindred writers, or because I need to explain just exactly what I do all day. Most of the people I tell this to don't have a clear understanding of how publishing works, however. Some of them think that the writer is supposed to pay for all this. Some have maybe forked over cash to a vanity publisher. Some have maybe done some self-publishing (not the same thing, although self-publishing is NOT traditional publishing, either). Some are beyond me and have maybe just gotten pages and pages of editorial notes and are wondering if the editor who bought the story really wanted that one at all? The thing that many of the self-published writers I know are most worried about is that some editor is going to go in and change their stuff, tell them what's wrong, and the work will no longer be wholly theirs.

I can sort of understand this fear. I am reasonably skilled at drawing (by "reasonably skilled," I mean I have won art contests that funded some of my college education, sold illustrations, and was even a studio art major for about a year and a half, until I realized that words were more my thing). Something I learned early on is not to draw on other people's art. Let them do their page, and you do yours. Book illustration, of course, is subject to editing just as writing is. But painting is more of an individual event where you channel your glorious muse into your own personal creation.

Well, publishing isn't like that. Publishing is more like building a house. The design is still yours, but there are other people involved to double-check and make sure your house doesn’t fall down. If the paint job is great but your house is built on land that won’t drain, it will soon flood and rot away. You need that percolation test first. Editors (and critiquers) are people who test your idea along the way to make sure that your idea won't fall down at the first stress it meets. They're there to let you know where it's confusing, where Suzie's eyes turned from brown to green, to let you know what is physically or logically possible/impossible for her to do, according to the rules you've laid out in your story. They are not madmen swinging axes at your dream house. They want your house to not only look nice, but to survive a hurricane of readers all coming from different places. They want to help you so that the message you are sending is by and large the one that readers are getting. They let you know of possible problems. Then it's your job to figure out how to fix them. "But!" you cry. "They think I should put George on a motorcycle and give him piercings, and he isn't like that! He'd rather sit on the porch, listening to opera." Well, maybe the suggested solution is way off, in your mind, from what's really going on. But the suggestion is still helpful because it lets you know that your idea isn't getting across yet. That's when you go in and rev up the opera aspect, making it clear to the reader what's really going on in your book.

Recently I used Word 2007's combine document feature to compare my latest draft of a book with my very earliest. I knew it had changed (it's nearly 30,000 words shorter, for one thing), but I was amazed at just how different it had become when I saw pages and pages and pages go by before finding, here and there, an original word left. And yet--after all those critiques and drafts and suggestions, I feel like it's the version most representative of my original idea.

So don't be afraid of editing. When you're done, you'll see that your story will be yours more than ever. Really!

Writing romantic tension

2009-12-29T22:52:00.004+01:00

Every once in a while I'll read something where a particular element of the story really sticks out as well done. This holiday, I've been rereading Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur series. (The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing Places, King of the Middle March, and Crossing to Paradise) Among other things, there is lovely romantic tension. It's not overstated, it's not the major focus of the book (there are other things Crossley-Holland does well, too), but he just really, really nails it.

Sometimes I read a book where the characters just like each other because the author wants them to, but there's no chemistry. Sometimes the reason is because the MC is actually attracted to the danger the love interest represents. I'm not sure how much sticking power that has. Surely it makes for a tense plot, but will it last the lifetime of the characters? Maybe, if they face danger together, or work out the issues. But maybe not. Sometimes the reason for liking each other is brute physical attraction. I suppose that's realistic for some people, but it was never enough for me. So when I read a book where the connection--which is more than just attraction--goes deeper, it catches something in my insides. It doesn't take dates to the prom or tons of snogging or whatever. If you can convince me that the characters belong to each other, I'm sold.

So, here are five reasons why Arthur and Gatty have, IMO, such great chemistry:

1. Crossley-Holland pits Arthur and Gatty doing something right when the rest of the world isn't. They're united on the same side, against the world.

2. He uses really ordinary details and settings to do this, which makes it feel all the more grounded. (There is some magical realism in the series, but the relationships and the choices are all grounded in reality.)

3. Arthur takes some flack for stepping out to help Gatty--it’s not just that he’s doing the right thing, or that he and Gatty are on the same side. It’s that, without a fuss, he defends her, both to himself, and to others. That alone wins him some pretty undying loyalty--if I were Gatty, there is no way I could keep from feeling something for him!

4. Everyone else around them is doing wrong. But they have the two qualities I admire most—loyalty and integrity. Yes, this is a personal preference for this reader! But I think it sets them apart--you cheer for them because despite their weaknesses they are basically good people, and deserve each other in a world of injustice.

5. They understand each other’s most important feelings, despite the worlds between them.

Any other elements of romantic tension you'd add to this?

Full novel evaluation (useful for revisions)

2009-11-15T17:47:00.002+01:00

In light of how the combination of plot + character needs to be strong to make your book viable, here are some things to consider when you are evaluating your own ms or someone else's.

Overall structure:

1. What is the main problem that the MC must overcome (ie, the central plot issue)? Where does the reader learn of that problem? It should be early on, like in the first chapter!

2. What are the major turning points within the novel? In some books there are three acts. Action should lead up to these turning points, which change the character and the situation, complicating the story until the climax, where there is no turning back. The results of the climax are irrevocable (to some degree, on a much smaller level, the turning points are a little like that, too.)

3. The turning points should occur because of the MC’s choices. Ie, the characters and their choices MAKE the plot. So track very carefully what your MC (or villain) does, what that sets off in terms of natural consequences, and how your MC (or villain) reacts to and deals with the new situation.

Characterization:

1. Characterization cannot really be separated from plot. Who the characters are determines how they choose to act—which in turn determines the plot.

2. Make sure, especially when writing for children, that their ages match their action and dialogue. Excessive exclamation points and yelling/exclaiming in text indicates very young children, for example. A story about fun adventure with your siblings and parents is normal for a MG. Not so much for a YA (which is usually one character against the world, and usually has some romantic element, or at least the acknowledgement that romance is one of the things on the MC’s mind, even if it does not come strongly into the story).

3. Again—character IS plot. What gives a character joy, what the character most wants and fears, and what obstacles they face ARE the story. (This point via Cheryl Klein.)

4. Is your MC driving the plot? Or are they just reacting or moving along amid things that just happen? Sometimes it’s easy to mistake action scenes for plot development. They are not always the same thing!

Pacing:

1. Look for long, expository asides that do not move the plot along. Delete them. Description should always be in motion. Starting a novel with “It all started when…” or some other device that rambles endlessly before the actual story begins is a kiss of death.

2. It can be helpful to list the events in each chapter and look at that outline (without the actual text of the book). What is the purpose(s) of each scene? Are there duplications in the book? If a scene isn’t contributing—or isn’t contributing enough—it needs to either be cut or expanded. Holly Lisle says that a novel is all of the passion and none of the toothbrushing.

3. Stuff that builds the tension should always be present. Occasionally your readers may need a rest, so it’s okay to have small conclusions (finding a clue after a lot of effort, for example, or a romantic scene, or whatever)—but don’t pause too long! Don’t let anyone get too comfortable, or the reader will quit reading.

Stakes:

1. Conflict is personal. It’s not enough to save the world. The character needs to save something important to him or herself.(This point courtesy of Kristin Nelson.)

2.You need a careful balance of action and character info at the beginning. A huge disaster at the beginning is still a “so what?” situation unless we care about the character. But you don’t want to put a bunch of boring expository stuff at the beginning, either. Instead, show us the scene through the biased filter of the MC’s eyes.

3.Stakes are something that have to be carefully laid in before a medium or major conflict arises, so that the reader can feel the meaning of what is happening. Read Marcelo in the Real World or Flipped for an example of the careful and purposeful laying in of stakes and see how they become charged with meaning when the MCs make their big moves.

Originality:

1. Is this different enough from other books (or movies), or is it leaning on tired tropes?

2.Even if it is on a similar topic as something else, a book also gets its originality from voice, from details that are very character-specific, and details that are grounded in the author’s personal experience.

3.Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief) suggests thinking of what a reader will expect in a given situation—and come up with the opposite. He tries to make a little surprise for the reader on every page. He recommends The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay as an example of a book that does this. His, of course, do, too.

Immediacy:

1. Show, don’t tell!

2.Use sensory details (and not just sight)

3. Act out the scenes, and add kinetic details you have experienced from being there and inhabiting the character.

4. Don’t forget common details. Beginning writers often splurge on glorious or horrific details, but forget the non-emotionally-charged ones that ground a story in reality and make it real (even if it’s fantasy).

5.Nouns and verbs. Use them! It's better to have a single strong noun or verb than a weak one with a weak modifier.

Language:

1. Repeating from above, nouns and verbs are worth a lot more than adverbs and adjectives. Also avoid vague words like almost, nearly, sort of, someone (as opposed to being specific when possible), etc.

2. Sensory and other details that are character-specific build voice, immediacy, and even stakes, quite aside from making a pleasant reading experience for the reader.

3. Use active language!! Both grammatically active (vs. passive) and interesting verbs instead of was –ing.

4. Watch for impossibilities, such as using two –ing phrases in a sentence (which grammatically indicate the actions are happening at the same time) when the two events are in reality sequential, not simultaneous.

5. Vary your sentence structure. Don't start all your sentences with -ing phrases.

6. Length of sentence can indicate passage of time. Use short sentences and punchy words for action scenes.

Dialogue:

1. Dialogue is an approximation of real speech—not a copy.

2. Individuals speak differently—make sure your characters do, too.

3. Make sure that you are not dating your book by using outdated speech, especially in children’s books.

4. Characters should say things that people would actually say. Avoid the “So you know, Bob” situation where characters tell each other things that they would already logically know. There are other ways of getting this info across to the reader (such as straight-out, succinct narration).

5. The dialogue should stand on its own as much as possible, instead of depending on adverbial tags to describe the way in which it is said. (Sometimes you need them because it cannot be obvious from the dialogue alone. But go spare!)

A character-based plot

2009-10-16T23:10:00.004+01:00

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. I've been revising and writing and doing other creative ventures, but now I'm back.

I spent a long time on a writing plateau where apparently I could string sentences together, yet I could sense there was an important line I hadn't yet crossed. I'm pretty sure I know what that was now, so I'm writing it down in case anyone else out there is feeling the same frustration.

Plot = character.

It's something I see in other people's intermediate writing a LOT as I critique from a variety of pools, and I'm pretty sure this is one of those things that divides intermediate writers from more advanced ones.

A story isn't a collection of stuff that happens to a character, with the character fending off obstacles and trying to get through the stuff the author has set in front of him/her. Instead, it's a series of consequences that arise out of a character's choices, choices that person makes based on their hopes and fears and desires and weaknesses. That's the way the solutions to the book come about, too.

What does the MC want, what is s/he afraid of, what pressure drives him/her to act anyhow, and what does s/he do? And what is the result? Preferably, this result will escalate the story to more complications.

I know, every writing book tells you this. It's not like I'd never heard it before, and not that I didn't believe it. But climbing around inside and learning to set off little fires under my characters' feet and make them live the consequences, watching them for how they would try to deal with them, is something I had to learn to do. I'm not saying I am very good at it. But finally I'm feeling my mind open up and really get it.

Improving the intermediate writer

2009-07-06T15:15:00.002+01:00

I was pondering some of the things that can help the intermediate writer get off plateaus this weekend (because there is so much out there to help beginners, but very little once you know the basics, are out of the 90% of all clueless submissions group, but still aren't hitting the mark). And voila, Cheryl Klein has a great post on "getting to the emotional heart of the story" today (and considering she edited Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork, you better believe she knows what she's talking about). So hie over to Cheryl's blog and check it out!

How to find an agent: a starting point

2009-05-11T15:24:00.002+01:00

Note: Do NOT query an agent until you have a FINISHED, REVISED manuscript. That means you have finished it completely and have had someone else (usually not your mother) read it and give you critical feedback. Once you have done that, though, you will need the following information:

1. Go to www.agentquery.com and open the advanced search options. Click on the appropriate genres/age groups that describe your work. Now you have a list of possible agents to research. Agentquery is pretty well updated and a great place to start.

2. Take the list of agents you are interested in and check them against Preditors and Editors (http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/). As Hagrid would say, “Not all agents are good.” Most are, sure, but there are a few scam artists out there, too. Basically, money flows to the author (ALWAYS remember that!) and if they want to charge any upfront fees, or seem to have any kind of kickback deals with people who will edit your ms for a fee, or if they are involved in both editing and agenting themselves (a conflict of interest), steer clear. Agents earn a commission on works they have sold, not on fees charged over unsold books.

3. See what people like yourself have to report on the agents on your list. Check them out at the forums at www.absolutewrite.com or www.verlakay.com (the latter if you write children’s books).

4. Get a one-month subscription to Publishers Marketplace (www.publishersmarketplace.com). It costs about $20 and you will have to unsubscribe if you don’t want to be charged for another month. But it is worth it. PM lists the widest number of agent sales. Not every sale is listed, but it will give you a much greater view of what the agents you are interested in are actually selling. Why is this important? Let me explain.

Let’s say you have a young adult (YA) fantasy. So you find someone in agentquery who reps plenty of adult authors, but they say they are also interested in YA. You go to see the sales they have actually made, and interestingly enough, ALL of their sales are in adult, and NONE are in YA. You might think about this. Likely the agent wants to expand. That is not necessarily bad. If they’re selling plenty of urban fantasy for adults, it’s not a stretch to pick up some YA along with it, since they’re already familiar with it. It might be a great fit for you.

However, let’s say you do more research and find that they haven’t read any of the popular YA titles in that genre. Never read Twilight, never read Scott Westerfield, never read Libba Bray. Um...now you should be concerned. If they aren’t familiar with these titles, they don’t know enough to sell your book. They will have no idea how your title fits into the current market.

On the other hand, you may find an agent who is expanding into the YA market who has been reading it all along, even if they haven’t been selling it. I ran across an agent like this who, in interviews and in his agentquery page, showed his familiarity with MG novels in a way that showed he’d likely have success (and he has gone on to do that). If I’d had a humorous MG boy book, I would definitely have queried him. So you see, it’s not always bad—you just need to get the full picture.

One more scenario, and then we’ll go on. Let’s say that the agent is great with paranormal/urban fantasy, sells your YA of that genre, and everything is great. Until you write your next book, which is a midgrade (MG) historical novel about orphan trains. Um. Now you may have a problem. The adult paranormal agent dipping into YA might not have any contacts for MG markets. And suddenly you find yourself parting ways with your agent because they can’t sell your new book. Are they a bad agent? No. But you now have a bad fit. So look at the full range of what they are comfortable with, what they know, and be honest with yourself about the full range of what you see yourself writing. Getting a Bigname Agent who doesn’t cover your writing field of interest will not do you much good in the end if they don’t have the contacts.

Okay, so you have your list of agents you’re interested in. Look at what they want you to send them, and FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. They get hundreds—thousands—of queries. Do you really want to give them an easy reason to toss yours?

You will have to write a query. Maybe send more. Agentquery has some nice samples of these, and you can always (and probably should) go to the late, great Miss Snark’s blog (http://misssnark.blogspot.com/) and check out her crapometers. Look at 100 or so with her snarky comments and you will start to see what works (and doesn’t) and why. Basically, you need to let the agent know the title, genre, age group, and word count for starters. You need a brief bit about yourself (which is pretty brief if you haven’t been published before—and this is not bad, everyone has to start somewhere). And most importantly, you will need a hook. A hook is a brief paragraph (like what’s on a book jacket) that tells what the book is about. I love Miss Snark’s formula for this (although not every book will fall into this formula—but this is one way to do it):

X is the main guy;
Y is the bad guy;
they meet at Z and all L breaks loose.
If they don't solve Q, then R starts and if they do it's L squared.

In other words, you need to say who the principal players are, and what the conflict is. With specifics. There are a zillion books out there about saving the world. The specific, personal conflicts are what make your book different.

Don’t be needy, do spell correctly, and remember that your query is your professional introduction. You wouldn’t show up to a job interview with peanut butter on your t-shirt (and you probably wouldn’t wear a t-shirt in the first place), and you wouldn’t give a long sob story about how no one else will hire you, so you might as well try here. No, you’re going to want to look confident, friendly, and professional. Make your query equally professional.

6. A last word about responses. Most people query multiple agents at once. I think everyone in the field expects that. If there is interest, an agent will probably ask for the first three chapters (a partial), and from there, either reject it or ask for the full manuscript. (See, this is why you need to have it finished and ready.) A few agents will want to look at your manuscript exclusively. Put a time limit on this (3 weeks? 6 weeks?), after which they are welcome to keep looking, but it will no longer be exclusive. If you get offers from more than one agent, tell everyone in the running that you’ve had an offer (no need to say from whom), and give them all a week or so to read/express interest/whatever. And hopefully you will have a great agent and go on to sell many excellent books together.

On choice and sacrifice and writing in Eden

2009-04-20T14:45:00.003+01:00

(Warning: if haven't read Harry Potter, you may find some spoilers. But then again, if you haven't read it by now, you probably don't care about reading spoilers.)

If you asked me what one element is in all of my favorite books, in all of the texts that I reread and carry around with me in my heart, it would be personal sacrifice.

I come to this from a variety of sources: religion (Jesus laying down his life for his friends), fairy tales (the Little Mermaid giving up, as she believed, her chance at a soul), life (is this not what motherhood is all about?), and a bounding hope for miracles, even when things are darkest. It’s the sun that rises directly from that darkness that I read for. And I am sure I am not the only one. Many others love Harry and Aslan and others who sacrifice what they have for something greater. It doesn’t have to be giving up one’s life. I can be giving up one’s fears or chances. But always, the character gives up something they want out of love for someone else or a sense of justice, and the payoff is greater than that which they forfeited.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? It is not as easy to do as it looks. I can think of books where I know the writer was trying to do this, and yet, failed to get it across. Instead, the characters come across as too willing to give up their personalities and all their own desires and directions and let other characters’ wills trample their own. Since I’ve got a character who’s got to sacrifice his fear of the consequences in order to confront the truth, I’ve been pondering what makes it work, and how to avoid messing up.

I think it’s in the plotting. Specifically, in the choices the character makes before that last great choice.

Let’s think of a character who sacrifices everything in the end. Harry Potter Harry Potter gives up everything in the end. Our hearts are in our mouths and tears on our cheeks as we read him going into the forest. He isn’t giving up his personality. But he’s willing to give away his life. What is the difference between Harry and the character whose sacrifice doesn’t quite work?

Both authors obviously want to say that the characters are making a noble choice , that it is their own free will to give up something they want. So far, so good.

But to make a true choice, the choices must be equally compelling.

The weak character gives themselves up because it’s “in their nature” to be self-sacrificing. They’re noble, it’s “what they’re like.” Because “they can’t do anything different.” Now, this character may still succeed—maybe they’re the underdog, and we feel the injustices they experience. Maybe there’s another reader connection. But to keep the noble choice noble, it’s got to be something they choose when they can full well choose differently. That’s how real life is set up, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. There is opposition in all things because without the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, choosing the fruit of the Tree of Life isn’t really a choice. A person “choosing” good without a real option remains in a state of innocence and ignorance because they don’t really comprehend the depth of the good choice. There is no sacrifice and no learning. No incredible sunrise after the night. Just a medium sort of gray. No victory.

Let’s think about Harry again. We know Harry’s choice is a real, full choice because he’s failed to sacrifice himself in the past. Failure. That’s key. Because he hasn’t always done this. He’s been nasty to Hermione. He’s cursed Malfoy with sectumsempra. He’s hated Snape. And yet this time, when it counts the most, he decides NOT to be self-centered, but to give all. It’s a real choice.

This sort of thing repeats itself in the lives of other characters. Luke in Tim Bowler’s Firmament has done what Skin’s gang wants him to do before. He knows what will happen if he doesn’t comply. So when he does refuse to show up at the house they’re supposed to be breaking into, we know this is a real choice, because we already know what it will cost him—and he does, too. Marcelo in Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork, knows what one action will set in motion because he’s seen the ruthlessness of the lawyers he’s working for already. And because he’s already folded and done what his father wanted.

J.K. Rowling gave an excellent talk about the value of failure in a Harvard commencement address recently. If she hadn’t utterly failed, would she have been able to write Harry? I think not—or at least, not to the depth that kept the entire world enthralled with his story. We as writers should not be afraid to let our characters fail. We should have the courage to use the memory of our own failures to color our characters.

So let those characters sacrifice, and give them their rewards for doing it. But let them do it with the bittersweet flavor of an apple from Eden, so that when they finally do get the fruit of the Tree of Life, it means something to them—and to the reader.

How YA is different from adult

2009-03-22T04:00:00.002+01:00

(cross-posted at Verla Kay's board)

Every once in a while writers will cross, not genres, but age brackets in writing. While I definitely have favorites and can back them up with reasons, I think it's probably fair to say that one age bracket is not inherently better, harder, or more valuable than another. Adults read kids books, kids read adult books, but I think it's a given that you are going to get different perspectives depending on what age group you're reading. That said, I've read a number of books by successful authors for adults who have tried their hand at books for the kids. Some of them are pretty successful (Rick Riordan comes to mind as a great YA writer; haven't read his adult books yet). Some of them...well, not so much. So if you are a world-famous adult writer and think it's easy to write for the younger crowd, please keep a few things in mind:

1. Don't talk down to the readers. YA isn't dumbed-down adult.

2. Stay in the head of the teen MC and let them solve the problems. Sometimes I've read books by adult-turned-YA writers where the POV is just too much from the eyes of the surrounding adults.

3. Don't throw a bunch of stuff in just because it's educational. Even if it's fun (let's cover every interesting historical period on the planet! Let's include all known mythological creatures, just because!), if it doesn't have a reason integral to the character and the plot that emerges from that character, it doesn't need to be there.

4. Heart. In YA, I think this stems from the core developmental change that occurs during the teenage years, ie, becoming an independent person. Whether you rebel against what you've been taught or decide to embrace it, all of your own free choice and no one else's, you're on your own. You might have friends, you might have family, but there is only one person making those choices, and that is you. That's a bit of a difference from MG, where your "MC" might actually be a group of friends, or from adult, where those choices have already been made, where you already have power that teens don't have. So I think some of the heart in YA is letting your MC actually make those choices they need to, with all the fears and consequences and triumphs that come along with it. Doing that pulls the readers into your character's head and emotions and lets them identify with and fall in love with your MC. Which, I think, is ultimately what captures teen readers.

Structure/plot: chapters

2009-03-22T03:48:00.002+01:00

In the interest of plot structure I'm sharing my current way of looking at chapters. I think it works best as a revision technique, but I suppose if you're first an outliner you could use it from the start. I've adapted it from a variety of sources and by no means claim it for my own--but I'm throwing it out in case it helps someone else.

1. What is the point of the chapter? (Why are you including it in here at all?)

2. What is the MC's (main character) goal (whether or not they know it)?

3. What does the MC do to meet and/or fail this goal?

4. What is the outcome? How are the stakes higher? To what new plane/complication has the MC come?

2009-01-24T16:24:00.002+01:00

Running away, even in the mortal world, was harder than I’d expected.

Human voices flickered around me as I entered the Detroit International airport from the jetway. On first encounter, the voices sounded more like grunts and coughs than intelligent thought. I could have focused, could have deciphered the streams of Arabic and English and French, but that would only remind me of what I was leaving behind. It was easier to turn off conscious thought and follow the crowd.

I gripped my carry-on—considerably lightened, since they’d confiscated the shampoo and toothpaste in Cairo—and waited as the other passengers claimed their luggage. I knew where mine was, of course. I could just catch its faint odor of leather and dust as it circled the far side of the belt. I edged closer as an airport worker shot me a suspicious look and pulled out a radio. Sweat prickled my forehead. I frowned, focused on the inner circuits of the radio, and a moment later, the guard tapped the device in frustration and hurried away for a replacement. My suitcases popped through the flaps from the other side. I snatched them off the belt and headed for the customs line marked “non-U.S. residents.”

Like the security guard, the eyes of the customs agents lingered on me, the smell of mistrust reeking from their skin. I didn’t need English to understand that. I’d gotten enough of it in the weeks since the accident. The weeks I’d spent in the mortal world, shivering in abandoned shacks, dirtier than I’d ever been in my life.The weeks I’d scrounged for food and been chased away like a common thief. I’d been afraid to use any of my true powers for fear of being caught.

I shifted in the suit I’d swiped off a dead boy in an alley. I was a young man from a world hotspot, traveling alone, and I stuck out like a chili pepper in a bowl of millet. One of the guards gave me several long stares; then, perhaps attempting to override his prejudice, forced his attention to a blond mother struggling alone with three young children. The official laid a hand on the smallest suitcase and the toddler’s temper exploded.

The child’s screams pierced my memory like flaming javelins, and my mouth tasted charred. Not again, not now… I fought with my lungs to calm my panic.

It wasn’t my fault.

The luggage cart behind me knocked my heels, and I jumped.

It’s just an airport. The inspections are routine procedure.

But the screams still clawed at my ears. I ripped open my carry-on and pretended to fumble with something inside, hoping the agent would prefer to inspect me and let the mother pass through the gate and quiet her child. It worked. The agent’s eyes flew to me and he waved the mother through without a second glance. “Inspections,” he barked as the shrieks trailed down the hall. “Show me everything inside.”

I popped open my suitcases and let my hearing reach across the airport as the agent pawed through the linen shirts, the sandals, the stiff new jeans. I had plenty of time. My host family hadn’t arrived yet. “Careful with the papyrus,” I said.

The agent pounced on the pages and held up each sheet, one by one, to the light. He even sniffed them. He took out the sandals, my linen shirts, and an old print of the pyramids, and examined them all minutely, even though the security dogs had already been over them. Eventually he replaced everything with a frown and snapped the case shut. “All right, then. Everything is in order.” He sounded disappointed.

By the time I reached the passport control counter, everyone else had gone on. I presented the crisp new passport and visa to the agent, who compared the photos with my living face. “Sekem Em Pet,” he read, spitting out a hard K. Urgh. Human saliva. And bad-smelling, at that. At least he was an unbeliever. I wouldn’t have to endure him mangling my name in prayer.

“Se-khhem,” I corrected with a roll of the back of my tongue.

“Se-kem,” he repeated, spraying more spit. “What is the purpose of your visit?”

“High school exchange student,” I said.

He tilted the passport to inspect the binding, but a summons in my head swept over me, blotting out my attention to my passport.

ANUBISSSS....

I felt rather than heard it from half a world away. I held my breath, stilled the sense of power flickering inside me that would only betray me if let out. They couldn’t find me, not now, not after I’d given up everything.

The agent checked my visa and tapped it and my passport on the counter impatiently. “Mr. Em Pet? Enjoy your stay in America.”

I snapped to attention and took the passport. “Thank you.” I stuffed the booklet in my wallet, tucked the wallet into my bag alongside a Michigan tourist brochure, and passed through the gate. The sensation of watchfulness snapped off. A shudder swept over me, but Egypt—and my family—were behind me. I was free.

Across the room waited my new life. I hefted my bags and went to meet it.

The cavernous waiting room was filled with chaos. People pushed at me, blocking my attempts to locate my host family, and my head swam at the onslaught of noise.

“There he is!”

A large crowd rushed forward, but it wasn’t me they were meeting. Another young man, another family. The parents’ smiles bloomed with pride, and I stumbled into the luggage cart in my attempt to get away from the happy homecoming I would never have. Not after my uncle’s accusations.

Gradually the room cleared, and the click click click of the spinning luggage claim mechanism in the room behind me died away, leaving only the airport janitor knocking his mop into a bucket of water. He swished wide circles across the floor around me, but I didn’t move. There was nowhere to go.

I hunched over my luggage. The clock overhead ticked out the crazed beat of mortality. I’d spent most of my life in the Underworld, where a thousand human years were like a day. Human lives were like flames, quick to ignite, and just as easily snuffed. I’d never wanted to be here.

I sighed and tried to block out the impatient sound of the clock. I was far enough away that any divine footprints I might leave would have plenty of time to fade before any searching god thought to look here. And as long as I didn’t do anything stupid, the mortals would never notice. Yet throwing myself to the mercy of humans…It had seemed the solution to everything when I’d riffled the pockets of the stolen suit and found a blank application for an exchange program in America. An invented school record and a forged passport—I was always good with art—and I was on my way. Now it seemed insane. The gods couldn’t protect me. How could I expect mortals to?

The door across the room hummed open in the silence, and hurried voices darted inside. “Let me see the picture again, Mom!” said a boy.

“Take the sign for me so I can get to my purse,” said the woman.

“There he is,” said a quiet male voice, and a moment later, footsteps stopped in front of me. I looked up slowly, my eyes resting first on scuffed sneakers and faded jeans. A slightly-crinkled paperboard sign dangled from the hands of the boy: Welcome to Michigan, Sekhem! The boy shuffled closer to his father so that his elbow leaned against the man. The man had a long, narrow face, dark hair that was beginning to thin, and wire-rimmed glasses. I expected him to be taller, stronger, but all he did was hold out his hand and say in the same quiet voice, “You must be Sek-Seh—”

“Sekhem Em Pet,” I said. “But my American name is Andy.”

“Andy, then.” He dropped his hand, and only then did I remember I was supposed to shake it. “I’m Scott Whitcomb, and this is my wife Lisa.”

The top of Lisa’s frizzy brown head didn’t quite come to my shoulder. “Hi, Andy,” she said.

The boy let the sign slide to the ground, grinning through the hair spraying into his eyes. “I’m Jake.” Judging from the gaps in his front teeth, he had to be around six.

“Hello, Jake,” I said.

Jake stared up at me as Scott hefted my suitcases. “Sorry we’re late,” Scott said. “We er, had a last-minute business matter to take care of along the way that couldn’t wait.”

“How was your flight?” Lisa asked. She smiled, but worry oozed around the edges. I pretended not to notice.

“Too long,” I said.

Scott pulled the suitcases—my whole life, or what was left of it, anyway—and headed toward an escalator. I picked up my carry on and followed the family downstairs.

“What’s Egypt like?” Jake asked.

Angry, I thought. “Hot,” I said aloud.

“Have you ever seen a pyramid?”

I described Khufu’s masterpiece as we pushed our way through the airport and out to the waiting transport. Humidity slapped us as we stepped out the door, but no one else seemed to notice. Scott parked the suitcases behind a long blue van and unlocked the back doors. A cot covered with lumpy blankets filled the back of the van. I set my carry-on over the blankets and reached for the suitcases.

“Oh—no,” Lisa said. “Scott can get them. Have a seat up front. You’ll be tired from your trip.” She opened the front passenger side and gestured for me to climb in. I shrugged and obeyed. The handbook I’d received from the exchange office, the one I’d memorized to help me start my new life, said to pay attention to local customs to avoid offense. As if I didn’t have experience already with offenses.

“I imagine this all looks different than Al Qays,” Lisa said once we were on the freeway.

“Yes.” I blinked at the expanse of green on either side of the road. It was greener than the fields of Aalu. To the ancient Egyptians, the West was the land of the dead. Somehow I had not expected the geographic West to be so foreign and alive. “What is this place?”

“Just Brighton,” Jake said, uninterested.

We traveled at dizzying speed. In the airplane I hadn’t sensed the velocity, but this… As trees blipped by, I realized I had missed a lot by hiding out in the Underworld so long. I hadn’t leave the Underworld often. Until now.

Eventually we turned off the freeway and entered the city at a much less exciting pace.

Welcome to Riverdale,” Lisa said.

“I thought you lived in Lansing.”

“A suburb,” Lisa clarified as we wove into a residential area.

Stone walls labeled Golden River Estates rose on either side of a wide street. Scott slowed the van and we slipped under a wide signboard with pictures of slender, smiling people gathering under a canopy of trees. The car wound past ostentatious houses with thick lawns until we reached an old white building with solemn pillars at the top of the hill. The house was generations older than anything else in the neighborhood. I smiled in relief, not realizing until then how foreign the new houses felt to me.

Scott turned off the engine. “Well, we’re here.”

Jake jumped out, followed by Lisa. Scott went around to the back and opened the rear door. Before I could do anything, he’d lifted the suitcases down and started for the house. I reached for my carry-on, and in doing so, knocked aside the blanket draped over the cot.

A human face gaped back at me.

A dead one.

2009-01-24T16:09:00.011+01:00

Deep Waters
by Rose Green

Chapter 1

Dad said Charleston was dangerous.

His words from so long ago came back to me as I darted for the brochure the wind had tugged from my fingers. The brochure fluttered, showing a map of Charleston on the back, and I made another snatch for it as our tour boat pulled away from the shoreline. The wind teased the paper just past my reach and tossed it carelessly into the murky water below.

Maps had covered Dad’s office; maps of places he’d been to, dreamed of. Maps of places that didn’t even exist anymore. My earliest memory was of him trying to read an atlas to me as a bedtime story. He knew everything about everywhere, and he loved to share it.

The water swallowed the last of my map with a taunting slap of waves as I leaned over the railing, and I realized there was one place he’d purposely left out.
It was too late to ask him about it now.

I rubbed a mosquito bite and wrinkled my nose at the sour smell of marsh mud oozing off the coast. The boat dipped, catapulting my stomach into somersaults. Along the water, reflections of pastel antebellum houses and Civil War cannons rippled in the harbor, just like in the postcards Aunt Jennifer had sent me. The postcards, of course, hadn’t included the hot, moist air and ravenous hordes of insects.

“...and that’s the story of Fort Sumter,” the tour guide said, wrapping up his description of the harbor. “Any questions?”

The buzz of conversation that had gone on during the guide’s spiel broke off into silence.

“Try me,” the tour guide said. “Here’s your chance to ask anything you’ve ever wanted to know about Charleston’s harbor.”

Anything I wanted to know. Dad had never once taken my brother and me to visit his home town. Never once brought up the subject himself, despite the aunt and uncle we knew—and the grandparents we didn’t—who’d lived here. The few times we’d thought to ask, he’d changed the subject, or, apart from that one remark about danger, refused to answer. Why?

The tour guide’s eyes darted eagerly from one tourist to the next, each of whom looked down as if he’d asked for the answer to an algebra problem from last night’s homework.

“Nothing?”

I set aside my own questions and jutted my head towards an island he’d failed to mention. Massive trees lined the shore and an avenue of oaks led to a mansion in the center. The clouds above parted then, and the wall visible through the trees gleamed white. “What’s that island called?”

Next to me, Aunt Jennifer squinted. “Where, Lily?”

I shaded my eyes and pulled my long hair off my sweaty neck. On the island, moss trailed in the breeze and a black pier reached into the ocean. It was as if a castle had sprung up on Treasure Island.

“You mean Folly?” the guide asked.

I shook my head. He’d already told us about Folly Island. “The one with the plantation house.”

Aunt Jennifer shot me a worried glance, and the tour guide raised his eyebrows. “Y’all ought to get something cool to drink when you get back,” he said. “The heat can do things to a person.”

I frowned. “But it’s right there. It’s got a dock and flower gardens and…”
The tour guide shook his head and took a step backwards, as if I had something catching.

“I’m sorry, Lily, but I don’t see it, either,” Aunt Jennifer said. “Maybe it’s just a reflection.” Her voice was gentle, a voice she might have used with someone very ill. Or crazy.

I tried to ignore the hairs lifting off the back of my neck as I stared at the land mass no one else seemed to see. The island was unmistakable, a solid sentry between the harbor and the Atlantic. Why couldn’t they see it? I raised the binoculars Aunt Jennifer had lent me and zoomed closer. Through the thick, lacy moss I could make out a tall gate. Black decorative bars curved in and out of each other, forming a flower around the lock. I wondered what lay beyond the gate, what secrets the iron guarded.

We circled closer to the open ocean. The water smelled fresher here, away from generations of rotting sawgrass. Waves lapped against the boat like a hum. I leaned over the rail and let the rhythm wash through my brain. The hum became a song, reverberating in my ears, almost like a familiar voice calling my name. It tugged at my breath as if daring me to leap down to the water and join the map lost beneath the surface.

“Dad?” I whispered.

The wake of the boat’s trail kicked higher, spraying me in the face.

The tour guide paused his description of where the C.S.S. Hunley had been found, and suddenly I felt the eyes of the group on me. “Are you okay over there?”

I flushed. Had he heard me talking to the water? “I’m fine.”

Aunt Jennifer pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. Concern radiated from her freckled face, so much like Dad’s. “Are you sure, Lily?”

I squirmed and inspected the mosquito bites on my wrists. They looked like smallpox. “I’m totally fine,” I repeated.

The boat lurched underfoot, and I grabbed the railing, reminded again that the only thing holding us up was twisting, changing water. Aunt Jennifer touched my arm. “The guide is right,” she said. “As soon as we’re done here, we’ll head home.”

*

After lunch Aunt Jennifer was still giving me her mother hen look as she stood in the doorway of my bedroom. “I have a house to show, but I don’t like leaving you if you’re not well. Maybe your mother was right, Lily. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to come here so soon after…”

So soon after Dad’s accident. Dad had come in February for Grandpa Pagett’s funeral, and met with a fatal car accident himself.

“I’ll be fine,” I said quickly. Aunt Jennifer was the one person who hadn’t treated me like glass, something I was intensely grateful for. I didn’t need her to start. I’d seen enough looks of pity to last a lifetime.

The visit had been Aunt Jennifer’s idea. Mom’s much-needed research grant came through just as Grandma Wosniewski, who was to stay with me, broke her hip. My brother Joel would be spending extra time with a friend’s family once he finished fencing camp. But Mom wasn’t about to leave me alone while she spent the summer in a remote area of the Rockies, especially not after discovering I hadn’t turned in a single school assignment in two months. That’s when Aunt Jennifer stepped in and suggested I spend the summer in Charleston. Uncle Rick would be in Slovenia, setting up company offices, and she’d love to have someone else here while he was gone.

“But that’s where the accident happened,” Mom objected. I’d overheard her the night Aunt Jennifer called. “She’s not engaged in school, she’s withdrawn from her friends—sending her to Charleston would only make things worse.”

“Maybe it would help her confront it,” Aunt Jennifer’s voice crackled over the phone.

But there was no other option. With Dad gone, Mom needed the grant for her job, so in the end she packed me off to Charleston. Mom might have not have been convinced, but Aunt Jennifer gave me a warm smile. “I’m so glad you’ve come. It’s about time you met Charleston for yourself.”

Her eyes reflected the same calm Dad has always given off, a calm that seemed to hold the universe together. “It’ll be okay,” she assured me. “Charleston is a part of you, even if you don’t know it yet.”

Now, in the doorway, Aunt Jennifer shifted in indecision, as if Mom’s worries were starting to sink in.

“I’m sixteen,” I said. “I’ll call if I need anything.”

She nodded doubtfully, and I listened to her footsteps retreat downstairs. Eyes stared out at me from a dozen sepia photographs of past Pagetts and Menguins. I ducked my head, suddenly shy before an array of relatives I should have known, had Dad not left Charleston off the map.

I pulled at the desk drawer to find a place for the stack of schoolbooks Mom made me bring. It was stuck, swollen in the humidity. I tugged again, and as it flew open something went plink.

I reached inside cautiously. Smooth metal met my fingers, and with a jolt I recognized the figure in my palm: an old key with a bird-shaped handle. Dad’s good luck charm, the one he’d brought with him everywhere. I stroked it against my cheek. It was warm, even though it had been sitting alone in the drawer. Dad must have forgotten it the day of the accident. Of all days to forget a good luck charm.

I toppled the pile of schoolbooks into the empty drawer and pocketed the key, the psychologist’s words to Mom echoing in my mind. “…she’ll never make progress until she accepts the fact that he’s gone. Right now she’s too afraid to face that.”

I stood up, though my knees trembled. He was wrong. I wasn’t afraid, and I could prove it. I went outside, my feet loud on the wooden boards of the porch. Heat glowed from the brick of the house. Aunt Jennifer’s car was gone. I slipped through the black iron gate.

Wide, sweeping oaks held their arms over the streets, Spanish moss stirring in the breeze. I followed the narrow street until at last I came to East Bay. The waterfront. The water smelled fresher now; the tide must be up, covering the marsh. I leaned over the seawall railing and watched the water splash up the wall. A low buzz seemed to come off the water, and I shivered. Maybe it was because it was my first experience with an ocean, but even as I stood on firm ground, something about the water made my head spin.

I stepped back from the edge, but the buzz didn’t go away.

The street cut inland, carving out a solid row of buildings between me and the waterfront. Ahead of me, flags waved from a stone building: the navy and white palmetto flag of South Carolina, the Union Jack, the American flag with a circle of stars, and the Jolly Roger. It looked like a building I would have known, had I done my history homework.

No textbook would have prepared me for the heat, however. I ducked around the corner and under the shade of an oak to wipe sweat from my face and shake the growing roar from my ears. But instead of clearing, my mind spun with the sudden unsettled feeling of the tide pulling sand from under my feet. I shut my eyes against the dizziness and reached for a tree, a bench, anything. I couldn’t faint, not after Dr. Mackler’s accusations about my delicate mental condition.

My ears filled with the sound of waves, far louder than the gentle swish of harbor tide should have produced. I fell to my knees and fought to clear my head. My vision wavered and went dark. At least the area was empty; there was nobody to ask awkward questions…

Gradually the roar faded, and I rubbed my eyes.

A crowd of people in period clothing congregated on the steps of the building. Those at the top of the steps were filthy, and as I looked closer, I could see the chains linking them together. Wary eyes glinted out of skeletal black faces. Behind them waited people with more flesh and better clothing, but apprehension glinted in their eyes as well. A movie, then. A sickeningly realistic movie about slavery. I searched for the cameras and roadblocks.

There were none.

Scents rolled in then, of dirt and sweat and animals. My heart pounded as I took in the scene. What was going on?

“I am not crazy,” I whispered. “There is a logical explanation for this.”

People brushed past me. It wasn’t just the slaves who stank. The men with brass-buttoned jackets and moneybags were whiffy, too. A stocky man in a tricorn hat and his pimply-faced companion gave me odd looks and quickened their pace away from me. Maybe they thought it was me who smelled funny.

A deep voice echoed across the steps, and I turned my attention upwards as the auctioneer opened bids on a gaggle of small children. The littlest one was crying. I stared, horrified, as two white men fought to restrain the child’s mother. With a scream she broke through their grip and lurched free, but one of the men struck her legs, and she fell, still scrabbling for her child’s outstretched arms. The other man clapped a metal band on her wrists, and together they dragged her away.

I shoved through the crowd after them, ignoring the shocked looks people gave me, but the woman’s cries melted into the general hubbub. What was this? No acting could be that real…

A pair of kindly-looking older men stood near me in conversation. “Excuse me,” I said, “but what—”

They turned to stare at me. “Go home and get dressed,” one of them said, pulling his companion away from me with a scandalized look at my shorts and t-shirt.

I bit my lip and slunk to the edge of the crowd. People around me gawked and whispered. One of them slipped off a jacket and tossed it at me. “Cover yourself up, girl! We’ll have no immorality on this street.”

I pulled on the coat, gagging at the sweaty odor. “Thank you. Can you tell me—”

But the man pushed away as if hoping no one had seen our exchange.

The auctioneer’s voice spun over the assembly. The eyes of the slave mother—if that was what she was—still haunted me, and I forced my gaze away from the block and onto the crowd. Strangely enough, not all the free people walking around were white. I even saw one black man buy a slave. I shook my head. That couldn’t be right.

Against my will, my attention flicked back to the slaves awaiting sale. There were no more children. A middle-aged man stood on the steps now. The slaves next in line were quiet, watchful. Prospective owners inspected their teeth, checked their backs for scars. Near the front, a white boy of about twelve was talking to a slave in his twenties. The slave was lighter than some of the others, with straighter hair. The boy turned, bringing into view a turned-up nose, quirky eyebrows. It was a face I had seen before. Not here—wherever this was—but back home, in Illinois. My jaw dropped. What was my brother doing here?

The boy shuffled closer to the slave, and I closed my mouth. It wasn’t Joel, just someone who looked remarkably like him. The same wavy hair, the same way he stood, only this boy was younger. Almost like a younger version of…I rubbed my eyes.

He looked like my dad.

My stomach dived. What were the chances of finding a movie actor who looked exactly like Dad as a boy—and right here? The other option, that it was somehow… No. That was impossible. Which left only one possibility: Dr. Mackler was right, and I was losing it.

I stared at the boy, whoever he was, and the man. The boy nodded at something the slave said. The way they looked each other in the eye was odd, as if they were equals, not slave and prospective master. I wrapped the filthy coat around me and moved closer, but I couldn’t hear their words over the auctioneer’s calls.
An auction worker tugged the slave’s chain. He was next. The slave glanced at the block, then back to the boy. He took the boy’s hands and pressed some small piece of metal into them. Light glinted off it for a second before the boy hid it in his grasp.

The auctioneer dragged the slave up to the block and the strange boy disappeared into the crowd. I dodged after him. Surely he would explain what the others refused to.

I took a step forward, and without warning, found myself spinning again, falling. My knee hit a cobblestone and I gasped at the sudden pain. I tried to hold onto the terrible scene before me, but my vision darkened, my mind muddled. I couldn’t fight it any longer.

I slumped to the ground.

When I could see again, the auction was gone. The clanking chains, the cries of the buyers…everything was gone. Trembling, I sat up and pulled off the stifling coat. Taxis and SUVs zipped past on an asphalt street shimmering with heat.

All signs of the slave market had disappeared.

Creating emotional depth

2008-10-16T23:46:00.003+01:00

To the very few people who read this blog--apologies for the long gap in updates. Since I last posted I had a baby (#5) and moved from Germany back to the United States. I've also been deep in revisions (finished, at least for now), and I am only beginning to come up for air.

One of the things I love reading but is hard to pull off is emotional depth. I think that there are some key elements we need to know for this to work:

What the MC wants most
What they fear most
What their safety nets are

And then, as authors, we need to rip away that safety net so that they can't just act on a surface level--they have to be desperate enough to do more than they thought they could do, sacrifice enough to earn what they deep down most want.

I don't think this is enough, though. I think to reinforce this we need to look at the details. No doubt you've read books that have a cool concept but come off sort of soulless, even if the characters supposedly have these things. I'm still thinking about this problem, but I believe that the reader isn't shown convincing evidence that these wants and fears really matter. I think you do that by building in small details into the story and letting them take on larger significance. The details need to be personal. I can't explain without major spoilers, but read Wendelin van Draanen's Flipped. Look how that boy solves his problem at the end. His actions mean something because of the details we already know about himself and Julianna. (Flipped is a great example of any number of things going right--you really don't need an excuse to go read it right now!)

I think sometimes authors get headed in the right direction, but don't pull hard enough, don't devastate their characters enough. It's okay to be nice in real life, to not react, to calm one's emotions--but in a book, it has to be larger than life. Be cruel. Let your character fall. Let him face his worst demons. Make her sacrifice more than she thought she'd have to, more that she thinks she can. Then any victory they have will be sweet.

For more on this discussion, see Verla Kay's board.

If you are writing a series...

2008-08-04T17:01:00.003+01:00

...please try to make the books related. Make the action rise. I know, not all series start out as such. But if you plan to write sequels, try, try not to make it look like you've pulled random plot elements from your Great-Uncle-Fred's magic top hat.

Also, I know subsequent books need a bit of a summary to help readers remember the first book, but don't overdo it with the telling. If you need more than a few lines here and there, maybe readers would be better served by going back and rereading the preceding book.

More on plot--making it GO

2008-06-06T20:11:00.003+01:00

I've been busy working on a revision this long time, but while I haven't been posting, I hope I've been learning. A few more ideas to add to the plot development theme:

1. Your characters need to come to conclusions as they go to help guide the reader and show that things are moving along. They also need to have a plan for what next. But, even more important than them planning to do things is to actually show them doing them! Instead of having your character's action be, make a plan to do X, let them be impulsive and just jump in and DO X.

2. Don't be afraid to reveal and resolve. Each time you do this, instead of bursting the bubble of tension you've created, you should actually be opening the way to further tension and complications from the results of the revelation. This should go until the climax, which should result in ultimately solving the problem of the novel. The middle is where mini-resolutions or mini-climaxes stack on top of each other until you can't go anywhere BUT to the climax. It's not a waiting room until the climax room is available.

Character ages

2008-03-14T17:25:00.004+01:00

One of the things that pulls me out of a book faster than anything is when a character does not act his or her age. I admit I don't notice so much when a character acts a little older than stated, but it really bothers me when the author states that a character is say, 14, but actually he acts like a nine- or ten-year-old. I've read a number of books like this. Nearly all of them feature male main characters. I don't know it's the inability to get a male MC right, or unfamiliarity with children in that age range, or the author being afraid to write anything involving hormones, or what. But it destroys my ability to suspend disbelief when I read this.

I have a ten-year-old son. I also do volunteer work with youth ages 12-18. And there is a huge difference in the way a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old think, act, and react. In fact, I think the switch from 11 to 12 is a very dynamic time, especially for boys. And it's not just because suddenly they're getting hormones. (Although it IS highly unrealistic to expect to write a book about teens and with no romantic interest whatsoever.) There is a lot more to growing up than gaining another year and another inch. So these are some things that I've observed that set the two age groups apart. Feel free to correct or add to as you wish. Yes, these are generalities. Yes, every kid is different. Maybe your kid isn't like this. But these are general things to keep in mind while creating your fictional characters.

1. Both MG and YA aged kids want approval from the adults around them. However, the things they want approval for are different, or at least, to different degrees. The younger child (age 9-11) wants approval because s/he's met the requirements the adult has set, or is successfully following the rules. They're great kids in school because they follow the program. A teen, on the other hand, wants approval for his/her independent ideas. "I am not you," is the teen's message. "I can think independently." A teen might rebel from the establishment to assert his/her own right to make decisions. Alternately, a teen might choose to follow all the rules. BUT--it will be a considered, independent choice, NOT because someone else says so. A teen wants approval and recognition that his or her choices are valid.

2. Breaking rules--I think the younger group wants to avoid shame and getting in trouble. Teens do, too, but they have a growing ability to sense how their actions affect others. A great fictional example of this is Harry Potter's changing psychology as he matures. In the first book he just wants to avoid detention. Even if he chooses to do things that he knows will earn him an evening with Snape, he sees that as "the worst." In Chamber of Secrets, he still wants to avoid trouble, but when he hears that Mr. Weasley is in trouble because his enchanted car got discovered, he feels guilty because his actions have harmed someone else. And he feels it without someone coming to him to rub it in his face. That's the difference between a middle grader and a teen. Another good example in fiction is Nick Mann's Control-Shift (also called Operating Codes), where the main character is torn between different ideologies regarding defense weapons, and loyalty to the people he loves. He can see how his choices can affect others. He can see past the immediate hand slap.

3. Hormones. Not every YA book is going to have romance, or needs it. But 9-10-year-old boys mostly don't even notice girls. Or if they do, they're too terrified to admit it. If you give me a book with teens and they are supposedly operating in the real world but have this complete blindness to the opposite sex, I'm just not going to believe it. Probably most of these feelings are unreturned, or returned by the "wrong" person. But they are there! I shouldn't have to say that boys and girls view romance and their part in it differently. If you are unsure, follow some of them around at the mall sometime. Sit in the food court and listen. Volunteer to chaperone a school or church event. Take notes when they aren't looking. Watch how they interact.

I do think these things are important. Maybe not every book needs all of them (Control-Shift is very convincing without any romantic elements at all--and, it's very focused one one--or two--specific problems.) But you've got to get into the psychology of the characters or they won't carry enough weight to make them real.

A few comments on self-publishing

2008-02-20T08:44:00.004+01:00

This blog is about traditional publishing. I don't know how to self-publish and I'm not really interested. I think in general, writers would do better to improve their craft, get and give critiques, and approach traditional publishers. That said, there are probably a few instances where self-publishing is warranted, for example, if you want to publish a family history. I think print on demand (POD) services like Lulu.com are probably the best way to go for that--you only pay for what you actually print, I believe, which would negate spending money for books you don't end up selling. But if you want to know more about self-publishing, you're going to have to look somewhere other than here.

What I DO want to say about it, however, is this: there are places where it's appropriate to advertise, and places where it's not. Places that are NOT:

1. Traditional editors. Publishers publish unpublished books. (Uh...say that ten times fast.) If it is already published, the job is done and there is nothing left for them to do. Got it? (And lest you bring up Paolini, let me dispell any misconceptions--if you have sold 10,000 copies on your own--that's TEN THOUSAND--then a traditional publisher might be interested. But twenty or even a hundred to your closest friends and relatives? Nope.) If you still doubt, read this: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2008/02/dont-spam-editors.html.

2. Agents. Agents sell unpublished books to traditional publishers. If you send them your self-published book, there is nothing they can do with it. Of course, if you write a new book, then by all means query them. Just because you've had one self-published book (or ten) certainly doesn't bar you from traditionally publishing a new one. Just be aware that your self-published books won't count the way traditionally published books will. An agent can see that you can finish a book, sure, but the point of listing publications is to prove that an unbiased judge found merit in your writing. You publishing your own writing is NOT an example of an unbiased anything. (Ditto endorsements from your mother, your children's teacher, or a classful of children. Of course they are going to say nice things. They don't want to hurt your feelings.) If you don't have any publishing credentials other than that, it's okay. The main point is, can you write? Not, how impressive of a resume can you invent. To cite the late Miss Snark (may she rest in peace!), the writing is what counts.

3. Writer groups devoted to discussing and improving craft with the goal of traditional publishing. Um...I've seen self-published authors blitz a board with their wares, never to return again. That is not an effective use of networking. More likely, your post will be viewed as spam. Yep. s-p-a-m. If you go the self-publishing route and still want to join a writing group, great. Stick around. Participate in discussions. Make a meaningful contribution. Maybe even...learn something about craft. People are much more likely to take interest in your book if you refrain from shoving it down their throats. Especially if they are committed to the long way around in hopes of traditional publishing.

So--if you are equally committed to self-publishing, please do yourself a favor and find out where it IS appropriate to advertise (maybe a site devoted to reading, not writing? Reading groups? Places where people are looking to buy self-published books? Groups devoted to the specific topic your book is about?) And good luck!

Passive and Voice

2008-02-15T11:19:00.003+01:00

I've been thinking about voice and word choice lately, and I just want to point out that one of the worst things you can do to alienate your reader and destroy voice is to cast your prose in the passive. By this I mean both the grammatical passive (X was done by Y) and the stylistic passive (Bread was eaten, stomachs were happy.) And now that I've said this I'm sure someone is going to protest that that's how that character expresses him/herself. Look, there are no hard and fast rules, but in general, passive = bad. It's like throwing up a wall between the reader and the character. It's telling, rather than letting us live the event along with the character. It prevents us from being in the character's head because in many cases, we don't even know who the character is who's doing it.

Take this example. Which version puts you into the scene more?

The princess stood in the kitchen and watched as the bread was made. The dough was rolled and twisted to form shapes. Then it was set carefully on a pan to rise. The formed, risen dough was then placed gently into the ovens. After fifteen minutes it was removed and shown to the princess. "Take it away!" she cried. "We don't like rolls formed in S-shapes!"

or

The princess stood in the kitchen and watched the bakers making bread. The largest baker rolled the dough with long, fat arms and twisted it with practiced fingers. He set each form carefully onto the waiting pan and pushed it aside to rise. Next to him, a smaller baker with her hair tied back lifted a pan of puffy rolls and slid it gently into the open oven. After fifteen minutes she hefted her spatula and lifted the pan out. "What do you think?" she asked the princess, holding the pan out for inspection.

"Take it away!" the princess cried. "You know we don't like S-shaped rolls!"

Okay, not spectacular writing, but still. We know who the actors are. And that makes all the difference.

If you would like to share an example, please do!

More on openings

2008-02-01T12:19:00.001+01:00

I've been following agent Nathan Bransford's first page contest this week. The first thing I have to say is, I'm glad I'm not judging all 600+ entries!! I freely admit that I am not up to reading slush. There were a lot of entries where I couldn't get past the first few sentences. The good ones--well, they really leaped out. A few observations:

1. The MG/YA entries were, on the whole, better written. (Uh--not that I'm biased or anything :)
2. The best entries started with the actual story.

(And now for the negatives...)

3. Profanity in narrative does NOT equal "voice." More like a weak substitute for voice.
4. Starting with a violent act with no chance to get to know the characters means that aside from general shock effect, there's no reason for the reader to care.
5. Starting with a character waking up is sure to put your reader back to sleep.
6. A lot of entries (especially those in first person) started by telling the reader the ENTIRE BACKSTORY of a character(s). But, there was no sign of an actual story beginning anywhere. Begin at the beginning, folks.
7. Perhaps a fresher use of phrases would be good, too. A LOT of entries had the actual phrase, "It all started when/with..."
8. Watch the gerund phrases. This is a pet peeve of mine, but if you start a sentence with a gerund phrase you are saying that that action is happening simultaneously with another one. Sometimes this is possible (Wishing she'd never come, Chiara wrapped her arms around her legs and tried to ignore the fact that she was 30,000 feet in the air, hovering over the Arctic Ocean.) But more often than not, it isn't. (Pulling the door shut across the room, Georgie lay down on the bed. --Unless Georgie is related to Elastigirl, he just can't do this.)
9. Starting with a character who is angry, bitter, and determined to MAKE THEM PAY!, without any other redeeming characteristics, is a character who many readers will prefer not to hang around. Characters don't have to be perfect, but readers need a reason to like them and hang around for the rest of the book.

First chapters

2008-01-22T15:49:00.003+01:00

I hope you have all had a chance to consider registering your bone marrow to help someone like Luise and Emil. For the curious, 3200 people showed up to be typed and the line was very, very, very long. So many good people in the world--it was very cheering to see how many people wanted to help. Now they're typing the samples. I hope there's a match in there. We find out in six weeks.

Aside from DNA matching I've been thinking a lot about first chapters. Here are two things that have been going through my mind lately that a first chapter needs to accomplish:

1. Set up the conflict/issues for the entire book.
2. Hook the reader on the character.

1. Setting up the conflict/issues for the whole book. By the end of the first chapter, you need to know a) what your main character wants, and b) his/her plan to get it. You also need to show c) obstacles against that plan. Of course, plans change and desires deepen. They should as the novel progresses. But the seeds should be sown now.

2. Hooking the reader on the character. It’s essential for your readers to form a quick and strong bond with your main character, or they won’t stick around to find out how your MC solves his/her problems. In general, MCs that are easy to bond with may be vulnerable or imperfect, but have at least some part of them that turns outward and wants to move/change/do something. A 15-year-old MC whose sole desire is to contemplate her navel and complain about how everyone is against her might be realistic, but who wants to spend time with her? Harry has a rotten life in the cupboard under the stairs, but he still finds things to be happy about, like getting an extra ice cream at the zoo. The heroine of Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days is about to be shut in a tower for seven years while her mentally ill mistress languishes on—but she’s excited at seven years of food! See, in a successful first chapter, there’s a silver lining in the problems, as opposed to a poor me attitude.

Another part of forming emotional bonds is to have appropriate stakes. This ties in with #1 of course. You can have a more global set of stakes, like saving the world, but you have to have personal stakes as well. Like Kristin Nelson said on her blog, conflict is personal. What does your MC stand to lose?

The other biggie, I think, is words. Are you using the right voice for your character? Are you close and personal? Introduce us quickly, and keep us right next to the MC. Avoid distancing terms like „the boy“ once we’re supposed to be in his head, and eliminate passive tense. Otherwise, it’s like watching a whole movie shot in wide angle. Without close-ups, it’s hard to get a sense of who is who, and why we should care. Use strong prose—exact nouns and verbs as opposed to weak ones propped up by adjectives or adverbs. Filter everything through your focal character—the setting, the weather, the interactions of others. A good voice is a biased voice. You’re telling your best friend your side of the story. You’re not a reporter trying to be impartial.

Assignment 1: read the first chapter of five different books in your genre, and identify what the character wants, what their plan is, and what stands to stop them. Then do this with your own first chapter.

Assignment 2: remove weak prose and distancing terms from your first chapter.

Register bone marrow and save a life

2007-12-21T14:48:00.001+01:00

Normally I reserve this blog strictly for writing purposes, but in the interest of reaching as many people as I can, I hope you will not mind a short post on bone marrow. My daughter has a friend in kindergarten (see http://www.galf-dresden.de/downloads/luise_emil.pdf) who has a very rare blood disorder that eventually means her body will stop producing blood cells--unless she can get a blood marrow donation. To make things worse, her little brother has the same condition. The family has searched all over Germany (where we live) and hasn't been able to find a match yet, and now they're looking in the US. I can't imagine how devastating it must be to face the fact that you might lose both your kids, so I'm posting to encourage people to register.

How it works: with just a mouth swab or 5 ml of blood they can type your blood to see what kind you have. http://www.marrow.org/ has information about this. I believe you can order a kit through the mail, even.

If you are a match for someone (and there's a 1 in 20,000 chance, which is why the more people who register, the better), there are three ways of getting those stem cells:

1. Cord blood donation. Actually, you can donate this without any kind of test beforehand. If you donate it to the public bank, it is free. You just need a collection agency connection with your hospital. Ask about it if you are pregnant. Even if there isn't one now, the more people who ask about it, the more supply and demand can get working. Cord blood is a one-time donation and identified by a specific number for that unit. You and your baby are not on any kind of list. (For those of you who were told it was prohibitively expensive to save your cord blood--if you save it for yourself, it's expensive, but if you release it "into the wild," it is free.)

2. A process much like giving plasma. You sit in a chair, they take your blood out of your arm and filter it through a machine to remove the stem cells, and return the rest of it to you. Your body regrows blood cells quickly, and there is no more danger or pain than giving blood or plasma.

3. The more traditional way, removing bone marrow. You are anesthetized, and with a small needle they remove some bone marrow from the back of your pelvic bone. You are sore for 2-3 days and your body completely replaces your donated marrow in 4-6 weeks. This is a small procedure, and contrary to common belief, has nothing to do with your spine and is not the same as donating an organ.

If you can't donate stem cells at the moment, but still want to help, you can also donate money to the bone marrow organization. I don't know the cost in the US, but the cost to type one sample in Germany is 50 Euro (more than $50 at present exchange rate). So if you're wanting to give a good gift to somebody this holiday season, consider the fact that you might be able to save the life of someone like Luise or Emil.

Plot/structure series part V

2007-11-21T13:37:00.002+01:00

I think this will conclude the structure series, although if anything else comes to mind I'll come back and add to it. This section is on tension.

You need tension in your story to keep your reader reading. You've all read books that were too easy to put down and not come back to. Maybe the reasons are different for different people, but too much straying from the main problem, characters with weak desires and little motivation, and not enough conflict are all snooze factors for me. So here are a few ideas of ways to increase tension that I've gathered from a variety of sources (including many critiques of my own mss):

Add a time limit--if the MC can't retrieve the magical glowing turnip by midnight, the world will end in fire and stinky cabbage.

Give your character a plan; don't let them just react. If they're driving the story the tension will naturally rise.

Even as you answer one question for the reader, plant another. Always let there be something to pull the reader through the pages until they get that answer.

Be careful about ending a chapter too restfully or with the character too contented. If they're content, make sure the reader knows something the character doesn't--like, This Is Too Good to Last.

Agent Kristin Nelson once said in a post on conflict that conflict is personal. Who cares if you save the world--what the reader really wants to know is if she can save the relationship with her best friend.

Spill to the reader early on what your MC's worst fears are--and then make them face those very fears.

Put two characters with strong (opposing) desires together and let them strive to get what they want. If the reader knows that they can't both win, yet there is no easy out for either, they'll feel the tension.

Eliminate plot arcs and details that don't lead anywhere. (Here's where working backwards from the climax to what caused it can help you locate those tangents.) Likewise, remove descriptions not strictly needed, especially at the beginning, and in scenes of great conflict/tension.

Use short sentences for action scenes.

Remove the safety nets. Make failure a real possibility, with consequences. Yes, this might mean being mean to your character! Make them go it alone instead of with the help they were counting on.

And finally, make sure you have enough conflicts. Obviously your story is based on a choice your character has to make. But to follow Miss Snark's method, it's much more interesting when both choices hold a promise of something desirable, and a threat. Otherwise, it's a no-brainer. For a satisfying climax, your MC needs to sacrifice a little, and make a real choice. Then your reader can walk away satisfied that the MC has truly overcome.

Plot/structure series part IV

2007-11-19T10:32:00.001+01:00

Today's topic is the beginning and working in back story. You need to accomplish two things at the beginning: ground the reader in what is "normal" for your story/characters so that they have a sense of meaning when something truly different happens. At the same time, you need to present unsolved problems that suck the reader deeper into the story.

The overwhelming tendency is to put in way too much introductory material in the beginning. No matter how quirky your characters are, if they don't start doing something in the right-now of the story, you are going to lose your readers. We don't need to know about the dog they had when they were six, or how their dad used to make pancakes when they were small, or all the details of the fight that means the family isn't talking any more. We only need to know enough to follow the current action of the story. Give out your information on a need to know basis. Especially in the beginning, you are establishing What This Book is All About, and if you veer too far off with unnecessary background info, you mislead the reader into placing too much importance on something that doesn't bear fruit within the novel itself.

Less common is the problem of too much action, too soon, and we don't get enough of a sense of the character and setting to know how to interpret the action or feel for the character. I still say you need to do this briefly. Agent Rachel Vater has a little bit to say about this here--basically, that whatever action you start out with needs to come through the filter of emotion. So add that emotion to everything--your setting (are the clouds restrictive, chaining the MC with darkness and not letting them see the sun, or are they warm, protective, comforting?) , your character descriptions (snarky introductions, fearful, etc.), and the situation. My husband says that a few piercingly accurate details go a lot further than a lot of bland words.

Going back to only giving what the reader needs to know: this is not only a factor of keeping the beginning from being too slow. It's also an element that's important for drawing the reader through the whole book. If you always leave just one more question in the reader's mind, they'll be compelled to keep reading until they get that answer. This keeps your pacing tight and keeps your reader wanting more. Three excellent books that illustrate this are Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Dairy Queen, by Catherine Murdock, and Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. In Speak, you know something horrible happened, something more than the other classmates know, and you stick with the MC until she's ready to confront that. In Dairy Queen, you know something's not right with the family, but she doesn't tell you what happened until you're already invested in the story enough to make it mean something. If Murdock had just said to start out with that there was a fight, it wouldn't carry the weight it does when all is finally revealed later in the book. And Twilight is a series of questions (why does Edward react so strongly to Bella? Can he balance his conflicting desires? How will they ever work out the huge obstacles between them?)

Assignment: Look at these three books (or any other beginning you feel is particularly effective) and list the unanswered questions that arise in the first chapter. Now look at your own first chapter. Do you have enough unanswered questions? Do you have information in there that doesn't lead on to real-time events in the book, that you could delete?

Plot/structure series--part III

2007-11-14T13:29:00.001+01:00

To me, plot is what happens when a bunch of characters are all working to accomplish something, only their desires and actions clash with each other. Only by either fighting through or working out a compromise can the main character win. (I suppose the MC could lose, too, but I don't like to read that kind of book. :)

Therefore (and this is most helpful once you have a draft to work with), you need to check the character arcs/plot lines of all your characters to make sure they are working properly. My checklist for each character includes the following:

1. What does the character want most?
2. What does the character fear most?
3. What is the character willing to sacrifice to get what they want?

It's a good idea if the things the character fears most then actually occur in the story. Those are the obstacles. I'd also hazard a guess that it's most effective when that thing the character fears most occurs at the hands of another character. It ups the tension and also binds the characters together so that your story feels whole and integrated.

With this at the top of the page, I then go through my draft and write a line for each thing that character does in the story, as found in the draft itself, not in the projections of my mind. I find it's very revealing! Characters drop out, motivations change, repetitions show up, and sometimes good things happen, too, like when I can see what really should be going on between two characters. Also, this is a good way to make sure everyone you've written in the story really belongs there. Can you tell the story without that person in it? If you removed that entire character arc, does the story stand alone? Likewise, you may find you're missing a character.

Plot happens because characters create it through their desires and choices.

Assignment: Write a character arc for each character in your draft and analyze how effective they are in the story.

Plot/structure series--part II

2007-11-10T09:04:00.001+01:00

Okay, now that you've figured out just what's at stake in your ms and studied other books, it's time to make sure everything in the book feeds to that point. There's a piece of merry-go-round-like playground equipment by my house. It looks rather like a mushroom. It has a strong central pole. Ropes spread out in all directions from the top of the pole to connect a series of concentric rope circles. There are also a few support ropes down below to keep the thing steady. If you're a kid, you then climb on top and get someone to spin it, and around you go. This thing is like your plot. Maybe not every rope touches the central support pole--but every rope is inextricably tied to it. If you removed any one of the ropes, the thing wouldn't work. Think of your plot this way.

The most important part of the plot is that central pole, which is your main character. Remember last time? That central goal your MC has and his/her plan to reach that goal is your central pole. Which means that your MC has to be in the driver's seat. They need to react, true, but most of all, they need to be causing things to happen. When you have a series of events but they aren't causative, you get a sag in the action. When your MC acts, meets the consequences of the action, and reacts by making another choice, you get tension, rising action, and an interesting plot. No, that doesn't mean it has to be car chases. One of the loveliest "quiet" books with plenty of tension based on character choice and the consequences that follow is Cynthia Lord's Rules. Go read this book, it's put together extremely well. (Not to mention the lovely prose, likeable characters, and perfect mix of humor and poignancy.)

Assignment: Pick a few books in your genre and find the climax. Then, working backwards, ask yourself what caused this to happen? (And more importantly, who?) Trace the line of event to initiator all the way back to that first decision. Then do this with your own WIP.

Plot/structure series--part I

2007-11-08T19:11:00.001+01:00

In the past year I've done a lot of full-ms critiques and I also spent the summer revising my own book for structural issues, so I've had plot on the brain this year. One thing I've noticed is that there's a lot more schrift given to sentence-level issues (dialogue tags, adverbs, etc.) than to structural issues in writing education. I suspect, however, that it's at the root of agent/editor rejections such as: "I'm not feeling the stakes," or "I like the MC but I'm not sure I'm feeling his struggle," or "The middle sags," or "You have a nice premise and nice writing, but I'm afraid I don't have the time to devote to getting this up to par." I hope if someone else out there is working on this issue they can join in the discussion and exchange ideas. Major resources on this topic include editor Cheryl Klein's many talks on plot, Miss Snark's crapometers, editor Thomas McCormack's book The Fiction Editor, and Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method.

The first point I want to bring out today is the importance of boiling your main plot down into a short sentence (okay, maybe three, max). This is important when you're writing the hook of a query; it's also important for making your whole novel hang together. I found three expert formulas for this:

1. Miss Snark says:

X is the main guy;
Y is the bad guy;
they meet at Z and all L breaks loose.
If they don't solve Q, then R starts and if they do it's L squared.

In the book itself, I think it needs to be pretty clear who your main character is right up front. The reader doesn't have to know who the bad guy is, but they do need to know that there is one. And--notice the double complication? If your MC has to choose between stealing (and going to jail) and not stealing (and having a happy, carefree life), that's a boring plot. You need compelling reasons to do (or not do) each option.

2. Add to that this important point paraphrased from Elizabeth Bunce (and many other writers/editors): what does your character do to overcome his/her obstacle? (Note: not "what happens" to make the obstacle fall, but what does the MC actually DO?) Draw a straight line between desire, obstacle, and the MC's ultimate act to overcome said obstacle to achieve goal.

3. Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method, which is where you basically start with a single sentence encapsulating the novel, and gradually expand from there.

Assignment: Pick ten books in the genre in which you write and boil each of them down to 1-3 sentences. Then do that for your own manuscript.

Emotional contact points

2007-10-26T19:50:00.001+01:00

I recently came across this video of opera singer Paul Potts on a friend's blog, and while I very rarely spend time on YouTube, I've watched this a number of times since then. There's something about it that really hits me, and I think it's the same thing that makes me connect with a book on a deeper level. First, the execution is brilliant. Seriously, I could listen to that voice all day. And while I'm sure most people in that audience were not opera fans, they were unable to stay in their seats when he sang. Whatever their surface preferences, Potts managed to resonate on a level all of us share. Secondly, the story of who he is--a mobile phone salesman who grew up with a lot of bullies and has always struggled for self-confidence--made his victory all the sweeter. It's the underdog element, it's the getting-down-to-the-wire-before-all-is-lost element; in short, it's the things that make a reader unable to shut a book. I want to write things with humor and entertainment value, but at the same time, I want some point of the book to make that point of contact with my reader. I want to say, we're different people, we live totally different lives, and yet--we tap in to a deep, common well. I want to leave something for a reader to carry around and think about. To feel. I'm not entirely sure how to do this, but I think it does need to have a little humor mixed in for balance, and I think it's got to test the character more than they think they can be tested, and I think it's got to be both universal and specific.

Here are a few books that hit me this way:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when he walks into the forest in chapter 34.

A Little Princess, on that extremely cold night in the attic, just before Sara was discovered by the next-door neighbor.

Rules, when Catherine runs through the parking lot with Jason, as well as all the fishtank moments with David.

The House of the Scorpion in the many moments where the MC struggles with having human feelings, yet believing he isn't a "real" person.

A Wrinkle in Time, when Meg goes back to get Charles Wallace.

Obviously, most of these points are climactic moments. What makes these climaxes special is that I feel just how much the characters stand to lose if things don't work out.

What about you? What books do you carry around with you and don't want to let go? And what makes an emotional contact point for you?

What does it take to get published?

2007-09-25T13:53:00.001+01:00

I think this is my hard questions page, and because of that I'm going to pinpoint some things that I think prevent people from getting published. (Disclaimer: I'm not published yet, so I include myself in the not-there-yets. Also, you are free to disagree with me, especially if you are a published author, an editor, or an agent. But after hanging out with writers and being one for the past many years, these are things I see as barriers.) And yes, I know there are a lot of variables that writers simply can't control, and sometimes timing and taste have more to do with it than the writing. But the variables are only part of it. So these are common problems I've seen and/or experienced:

1. Not willing to stick with a project and revise deep enough before sending it out. If you only lightly revise, you can send out your book before it's truly ready, and get rejected everywhere. Then if you decide to go back and do that revision after all, there's nowhere left to send it. Put the brakes on! Revise, take a break and work on something else, then come back and see if it's still as glorious as you thought it was the day you wrote "the end." It's hard to tell when it's time to truly pack away a ms. But there are some that get packed away that are almost there, and with a little more polish, might be somebody's favorite book. This is heartbreaking.

2. Revising one book for years at the expense of new, better books you could write. It's hard to find the line sometimes, but if you've really revised and gotten nowhere, maybe it's good to take a break and write something new. You can always come back to that first book once you've grown a bit and learned from other books.

3. Assuming you know all you need to already. Learn all you can. Read recent books. Take notes on books you read. Why did this one succeed? Read agent and editor blogs. Go to conferences. Hang out on boards like Verla Kay's. Read books on craft. Don't wait for information to magically drop into your head. It's your writing future; you are responsible for how much you choose to learn.

4. Discounting the value of critiques, especially the ones you do. It's not all about you. I've said this before, but you can learn more from critiquing others' works than you can from just getting crits of your own stuff.

5. Staying where it's too easy. Swim deep. Seek out opportunities to interact with writers whose skills are slightly above yours. Read books that editors use. If everyone who reads your stuff is only saying good things, maybe you need to find someone to critique your book who will be a little more...critical.

6. Lack of attention to craft. Work on these two things: nouns and verbs, and overall plot structure. The attention to word choice will help with voice, and the large-scale plot structure will make sure your book is a cohesive story.

Things no writer wants to hear

2007-09-11T09:57:00.001+01:00

Much of the time my writer friends and I spend is in trying to encourage each other and suggest ways to improve something that's already there. But there are those other things that we don't like to think about, that we gloss over and pretend aren't there. Today I'm daring to think about the big, bad things that make writers question their existence, and trying to see if there's any hope to be had. This is not directed at any particular situation; I'm just thinking about things I've felt in the past or been aware of, and since I'm having a fairly good day at the moment, it's probably a good day to confront these issues. But if you are having a bad day, have just gotten a rejection or are questioning why you are even writing at all, DO NOT READ THIS.

1. Your writing is good, there's nothing really "wrong" with your book, and it isn't a clear clone of something else--it just doesn't stick out enough to sell. That is bad news because if enough people say that, there may be something wrong with the core of your book. Like, you might have to just scrap it altogether. RIP. Thinking about this, though, I wonder if a story that "doesn't stick out enough" is another way of saying that "it isn't personal enough." Maybe there's still hope if you dig deep enough and reveal enough of yourself that it starts to hurt? (This is probably tied to the elusive "voice.")

2. You pay big $$ to go to a writing event and an editor raves about how much they love your work. You send in your stuff to them and hope, and a year goes by before you get a [form] rejection. What went wrong? I've heard editors and agents say how incredibly hard it is to reject someone to their face. They want to encourage writers. But encouraging someone to keep on writing until they get there and seeing something that's ready right now are two different things. Again, looking for hope: they may see the kernel of talent in you and want to encourage that, if even you aren't there quite yet.

3. You write a book. You go through critique and revision multiple times. You have major Good Vibes about writing being your thing, and about this book. You get all rejections back. Say you even feel confirmation that Writing is What God Wants You to Do, and yet, things don't work out. Well, now we get into questions of self-worth and maybe even God, and How Could He Let This Happen? Since I hang out with writers/artists as well as religious people (including people who are both), this is something I am well familiar with. The hard fact: yes, your book can be the best thing you have ever written. You can feel inspired as you write. But it can still not be at the level of craft it needs to be. And this is a very hard thing to take. Looking for hope: the market might not match what you're doing right now. True. But also, if you're willing to make the sacrifice, there might be more in it for you than you originally dreamed of. I like to think of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, who got off as much dragon skin as he could in that pool in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. But it wasn't enough. And when Aslan came and tore off huge clods, it hurt. But that was the only way he could reach his goal/potential. Maybe you aren't there yet. But I still say to listen to those voices that tell you Writing is For You if you feel them, because the potential you're capable of reaching has got to be even better than what you can imagine right now. So keep working.

Okay. End of depression warning!

On agents

2007-09-11T09:18:00.001+01:00

While revising one book and working on a new one, I've been paying a lot of attention to other people's agent searches. Especially to the searches that are for a second agent. One thing I notice is that people who are on a second agent have not necessarily parted ways because the agent couldn't sell their first book. Maybe the agent had a YA romance connection (because they normally sell adult romance), and when the author wanted to do a YA historical mystery, the agent was out of their element. In other words, the range in which the author and agent overlapped was very small. One thing I have heard more than once is that an agent, even a good one at a good agency, needs to have connections in the genre you write in. Which means that you can have an awesome bigname agent in adult lit, but that doesn't mean they can sell a midgrade novel. Or even YA.

I'm willing to allow for first-timers because everyone has a first time. But I still think that even if you're an agent who's decided to branch out into the YA market, you have to know something--and love something--about that kind of book. It HAS to be more than seeing dizzy dollar signs after the words "Harry Potter." An agent has the right to ask how serious an author is about their career and where they see themselves in the publishing world. But I think an author should also find out where that agent's heart is. What their favorite books in your genre are, what their favorite recent books in your genre are, why they like yours, and where they see you and your work fitting into the market. I know that is something important for me as I research agents. Just like the form rejection you see floating around, you can't just like the genre--"in this business, it's gotta be love."

On critiques and critiquers

2007-09-11T09:13:00.001+01:00

I've recently done a rather large-scale revision and now it's out with quite a number of guinea pigs--er, critiquers--who I hope don't regret volunteering for the job. Now I'm waiting rather nervously and trying not to think about the reactions I'm going to get. I like getting critiques because I want to improve, but I have a hope that someday I'll pass inspection, at least with an A-. Anyhow, I've been thinking of the kinds of critiquers one could choose, and their usefulness (or not). So here's my evaluation. (And in case you're wondering, I sent my ms to all awesome critiquers!)

The reader who loves you and can't bear to criticize anything. They don't get how critiques work. They can be great ego-boosters if they like it, but if they don't, you are unlikely to ever hear the title of your work ever cross their lips. I had one like that once. If I were to attempt another crit with this person, I'd make a list of question for them to answer so they didn't feel afraid of a personal attack.

The reader who thinks a critique is ONLY a criticism. Again, not so helpful, because if you don't know what you're doing right, you don't know what direction to go in. A good critique lets you know the good stuff, too. I haven't had one of these, but I've known people who have.

The reader who doesn't get the book/genre. This can be a very frustrating experience. The reader wants something that you were never intending to write, and their comments are either critical because you aren't doing that, or suggesting you change the very nature of your story. Again, questions here would be helpful for the reader. Unfortunately you usually don't realize this until you get your critique back.

On the other hand, the reader who doesn't normally read your genre can be a useful kind of critiquer because they will notice things that other minds will skim over out of familiarity with the conventions. They can be very helpful in recognizing how well the story works as a story. So don't discount this critiquer!

The reader whose writing ability/publishing experience is slightly above yours. Awesome. Remember to be this critiquer for someone else as well.

The reader who is an expert on some technical element of your story. Again, awesome. Although, realize that while they might be a trained psychologist, they may not be a trained plot-ologist. But if you have an expert on hand for some element of your story, that's a good thing.

The reader who reads widely in your genre and connects with the main point of what you're trying to do with your book, and who also can articulate themselves well. Awesome. Bingo, bingo, bingo.

Writing education the cheap way

2007-08-11T22:07:00.001+01:00

When I was about twelve I got my parents' permission to apply to a distance writing course. I'm sure they had NO IDEA how much it cost. Lucky for them, I was rejected on the grounds of being under 18. (Are you wondering if those writing courses advertised in the back of magazines ever reject anyone? Now you know.) I thought at the time that I'd wait until I was old enough and try again. So I took a look at the ripe age of 32. I was old enough, but the price was impossible.

I also heard about wonderful multi-day conferences with editors in the field, about expensive critiques with professionals (real ones, not people who just take your $$ and pretend to know what they're doing), and MFA programs. Well, I have an MA already, and it isn't in writing, because I didn't know there was such a thing at the time. And it isn't in anything that pays a lot, either. Considering that most of these things, valuable though they may be, are completely out of my price range could be rather depressing.

Or not.

I'm now convinced that you can get a fantastic writers' education if you're willing to pay in effort and not just in hard, cold cash. If you have access to the internet, you have a library card, and you know how to make friends, you can do this, too.

1. Read. Read the kind of books you want to write. You can't be a writer if you don't like to read. Pay attention to what works in the books. Pay attention to the things that throw you out of the story. Write down a sentence describing each scene of a book that works for you to get a sense of how it's all put together. Look at the words. Look especially at the nouns and verbs. Look at the lack of excessive adverbs in published books. Look at the fact that it's the rhyme as much as the rhythm in a successful rhyming picture book. Look at books published recently. Don't rely on something you read twenty years ago.

2. Read books on writing. More specifically, read the ones that relate to what you write. I write children's books (mostly YA). Books by people who like stories about 40-year-old adults who vacation in the Bahamas are less helpful than books by editors of children's books. Books on revising and editing can be extremely helpful because they apply to more than one genre. A highly technical one that is excellent is The Fiction Editor, by Thomas McCormack. You may have to take notes as you read to understand it, like I did. But it's a good one.

3. Write. Discipline yourself to write regularly according to the schedule that works for you. Connections with People in Publishing Power are all well and good, but you still need a saleable work. The writing itself is the first priority.

4. Use the internet. I can't say enough for sites like www.verlakay.com or www.absolutewrite.com. They are not only places to find answers to your questions, they are a community that will support you as you support them. Be friendly and helpful. Share. People have shared so much with me this way. I hope to do the same. On the internet you can find resources like www.agentquery.com, where you can research agents who represent the things you write. You can find editor and agent blogs, as well as author web sites. You can personalize your approach to writing so much more this way than if you just read the one-size-fits-all writing book, copyright 1978, that you found on your library shelf. You may even find conference notes on the internet. So many people are so generous in sharing their thoughts and impressions from conferences. Be generous and share when you have the opportunity to go.

5. Join a critique group, or find a critique partner. This is the single biggest educational step I've made. I don't doubt that it's an amazing experience to get a critique from a top editor in your field. But it's also pretty amazing to exchange a manuscript with someone and be forced to identify and explain just why some things work and others don't. It's especially helpful when you realize that the problem in the book you're critiquing is also one you have--and you've just articulated how to solve it. And, when you see another writer excel in something you're struggling with, that example goes a lot farther than a made-up example in a writing book. One manuscript I read had the most delectable prose I'd ever eaten--er, read--that ever after I've paid particular emphasis to nouns and verbs, hoping to raise the bar a bit on my own writing. In the past month I've done quite a number of critique exchanges, and every one of them has taught me something different.

Writing the cheap way is a time investment, as well as an investment of willpower and attention. But knowing what I do now, do I wish I'd had it easy?

No way. So I guess I'm glad for that rejection when I was twelve.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (no spoilers)

2007-07-24T20:59:00.001+01:00

Given my last post on how much there is to learn from Harry Potter, I feel like I need to mention some of the things I particularly loved about Deathly Hallows. (This is largely my post from Verla Kay's board, with the spoilers removed and some more writing-specific commentary added, in case it looks familiar.)

Was it satisyfing? It was very satisfying. Rowling has laid in so many plots and subplots in her books that it's amazing she was able to bring them to a satisfying conclusion. I know that there is always advertising hype like "this book/series is the next Harry Potter!" but I don't think such a thing is possible. (And I hope not, since I'd rather be a great writer of my own, instead of just a next Somebody Else, wouldn't you?) But seriously, this...series, or story, is different. And I don't mean because of hype and advertising. I doubt anyone will achieve such a complicated yet satisfying story for a long, looooong time to come. What I continue to find astounding is that it's all there in book 1. The whole story, sort of in zip form. Even all the way down to the last book, there were so-called background details from the very first book that ended up being very significant to the entire plot. It's more than just keeping a list of what color eyes different characters have, or what houses they're in or whatever; it's keeping track of motivations, backstories, interactions that is something that JKR does extremely well. I love her ability to surprise (and since she's able to pull it off for more than one book, she's rather good at it). She's very good at giving you what you think is the truth--and it is, only it's not the whole truth, and time and again, she's able to surprise the reader by giving more of the truth at the right moment, and suddenly you find yourself restructuring the story into something completely different. She's created so many characters to care about, and she cares about them, too, following up all of their little stories. Millions of people have fallen in love with her characters. Why? I think it's because although she exposes their weaknesses, she's not afraid to show us the characters at their most heroic. So many are so flawed, yet at the same time are able to recognize the challenges that really matter, and give their all to get them right. We feel for the characters because we recognize our own weaknesses in them, and we long to be the heroes they are.

Something else I enjoyed--sometimes the myth or thematic overtones of a one-of-a-kind book can get a little too big. I'm sorry, throw tomatoes at me, but at some point in Lord of the Rings, i couldn't really relate to Frodo anymore. His experiences and ultimate challenge were so exalted and so far removed from me that just couldn't keep the connection. Instead, it was Sam who was Everyman, Sam who I found I could hang out with. All of which made the LOTR reading experience a little strange to me. Despite all the climactic events of HP, though, I never lost touch with Harry. He's heroic in so many ways, yet he's always human and imperfect and vulnerable, and so we can still relate to him.

Themes I loved:
miracles and magic
second chances
gifts, and yet the importance of our choices--such a very big theme
hope
love

In the days since reading Deathly Hallows, I haven't done very much reading or writing. And that's okay. Sometimes you need to take the time to enjoy the awe.

Cheers to Harry Potter--the Boy Who Lived!

Falling in love (with a character)

2007-07-04T15:19:00.002+01:00

As a reader (and a writer), I'd say that probably the single greatest feat to accomplish at the start of a book is to make your reader fall in love with the main character. If a reader can feel what that character feels, can live through his/her dreams and pain and joy, then that reader will be hooked on the rest of the story. As I've been rereading Harry Potter (not unlike the rest of the Muggle world!), I've been taking particular notice of this, and I think there are two main questions that every writer needs to ask him/herself:

Why do I like this character?

Why am I invested in his/her struggle?

I think one thing that makes us fall in love is a mix of heroic qualities and everyday weaknesses. We see both ourselves as we really are, but also as we yearn to be. Take Harry in the beginning of The Order of the Phoenix. He's just lived through the worst experience of any wizard's life, and as a reward, he's gotten to go back to the Dursleys, who treat him like dung. Not only that, but instead of talking to him like an initiated adult, the wizards he trusts are now keeping him in the dark regarding Voldemort's activities. When he and Dudley meet up in the park, it all comes to a boil, and it's all he can do not to stun Dudley into smithereens with magic. We feel his very human temptations, especially since we know how justified he is in wanting Dudley to finally get his due. And yet, he fights it. That's the heroic part. He fights as hard as he can to keep himself from hurting Dudley, even rescues him from the dementors. His positive choice, mixed with the very real and justifiable temptation makes him believable, yet heroic. When he saves Dudley, it isn't because it's a "duty," it's because it's the decent thing to do--and Harry is a decent person.

That fighting against oneself or one's instincts works in other books, too. Take Edward Cullen, trying very hard not to eat his girlfriend Bella in the vampire book Twilight. Or Catherine in Rules, who has that glorious moment running through the parking lot with Jason, yet is too afraid to mention Jason's handicaps to the girl next door, in case the girl won't want to be her friend. The gap between weakness and potential makes our characters vulnerable and likeable.

Another thing that makes us fall in love is how a character consciously works to meet his/her challenges. Take Bobby in Things Not Seen, who wakes up one morning to find he's gone invisible. He's scared, but despite his fear, he forms a plan and goes to work to solve his problem. No reader wants a character who just sits around and wrings their hands. Like Bobby, Gen in The Thief has a plan, too. The other characters treat him rotten, and he plays along with them--but no one that crass would have the beauty of storytelling like Gen does, and with this the author clues us in that Gen acts the way he does on purpose, and even enjoys it.

A third thing that makes us fall in love is seeing what's inside a character, even if no one else has figured it out yet. Levin in Anna Karenina is too shy to talk to Kitty, but when she's not around, we see what a wonderful person he is! We cross our fingers and hold our breath, hoping he'll finally find a way to tell her how he feels. DJ Schwenk in Dairy Queen thinks and feels so much, and yet, true to Schwenk form, can't manage to say any of the things that would raise her above the herd she feels so trapped inside.

Falling in love with the character is a huge part of the book, but not all of it. To keep a reader reading, the tension needs to rise, and the reader needs to stay invested in the character's struggle. This happens as the character's desires grow in tandem with his or her opposition. Going back to Phoenix, we know Harry is telling the truth because we saw what happened to him. Rowling didn't just tell us, she showed us. And just when Harry thinks he'll be getting support, he gets called a liar, instead. The greater his need for support, the less he gets, which makes his case seem more and more just. By the time he gets detention from Umbridge, the reader is burning for justice. If you think of what your character wants most, and then throw the worst thing to prevent that, you've got tension, you've got action--and you've got a reader glued to the pages, wanting to fight for your character.

Practice:

Write a scene to make the reader feel indignant on your character's behalf. Do this by showing what the character really wants, and prevent them from getting it. Give them a taste of a dream, then rip it away. Show the reader the truth, and then have no one believe what really happened.

Write a scene that makes you feel sympathetic for the character even though he may be making a bad choice or may be doing something that others will look down on.

Write a scene in which your character shows positive attributes in the midst of an otherwise bleak situation. They have a plan, they see the silver lining, they go out of their way to be nice to someone when they could justifiably wallow, instead.

My illustration

2007-06-30T08:59:00.002+01:00

While I am primarily focused on young adult novels, I have also sold illustration in the past. A brief sampling of mostly small children. I love the body language of toddlers, with their full cheeks, heavy heads, and spindly bodies.

All images copyright Rose Green. Please do not use without permission!

Links

2007-06-30T08:48:00.001+01:00

Writing and reading:

Verla Kay
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators
Editor Cheryl Klein's website and blog
Agent Rachel Vater's blog
Agent Kristin Nelson's blog
Editorial Anonymous, children's editor
the Longstockings
Blue Rose Girls
Fuse #8, blog of a NYC children's librarian (lots of book reviews)
Deliciously Clean Reads (more book reviews)

Other:

Mugglenet
Castles in Germany
South Carolina plantations

Reading list

2007-06-30T08:37:00.003+01:00

A few of my favorite books (grouped by age):

Picture books:

Asimov, Isaac. The Best New Thing
Bang, Molly. The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher
Bulla, Robert Clyde. The Moon Singer
Cole, Joanna, and Bruce Degen. The Magic School Bus books
David Wisniewski, Golem and others
De Bruhoff, Laurent and Jean. The Babar books
Fox, Mem and Helen Oxenbury. Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
Glen, Maggie. Ruby
Hamilton, Virginia. The Girl Who Spun Gold
Henkes, Kevin. Weekend with Wendall and all the Lilly books
Ian Falconer, the Olivia books
Ludwig Bemelmans. Madeline
Marla Frazee. Everywhere Babies, Roller Coaster, and others
McCloskey, Robert. Blueberries for Sal
Perkins, Al. Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
Raven, Margot Theis. Circle Unbroken
Say, Allan. Grandfather's Journey
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are and Chicken Soup with Rice
Seuss, Dr. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish in particular
Shannon, David. The David books
Sis, Peter. The Three Golden Keys
Smith, Lane. The Happy Hocky Family
Velthjuis, Max. The Frog books
Wiesner, David. Sector 7 and others
Fairy tales collected by Andrew Lang and the Grimm brothers

I also like the following illustrators:

Tasha Tudor
Trina Schart Hyman
David Small
Ted Lewin
E.B. White
N.C. Wyeth
Chris Van Allsburg

Favorite graphic novels:

Hale, Shannon and Dean and Nathan Hale-no-relation, Rapunzel's Revenge
Tan, Shaun, The Arrival

Favorite novels (midgrade and YA):

Alexander, Lloyd. The Chronicles of Prydain
Anderson, M.T. Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware.
Barber, Antonia. The Ghosts
Burnett, Frances Hodson. A Little Princess
Clements, Andrew. Things Not Seen
Crossley-Holland, Kevin. Arthur series and especially Gatty's Tale (Crossing to Paradise in the American edition)
Cushman, Karen. Midwife's Apprentice.
Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach
Duncan, Lois. A Gift of Magic
Eager, Edward. Half Magic
Farmer, Nancy. House of the Scorpion
Hale, Shannon. River Secrets.
Hoffman, Mary. Stravaganza series.
Ibbotson, Eva. The Star of Kazan.
Jean Ferris, Love Among the Walnuts
Jones, Diana Wynne. Fire and Hemlock and Howl’s Moving Castle and the Dalemark Quartet
L'Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time.
Levine, Gail Carson. Ella Enchanted
Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia
Lord, Cynthia. Rules.
McDonald, George. The Princess and Curdie and The Princess and the Goblin
McKinley, Robin. Beauty
Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight.
Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Dairy Queen.
Nesbit, E. The House of Arden
Oppel, Kenneth, Airborn
Pope, Elizabeth Marie. The Perilous Gard
Rex, Adam. The True Meaning of Smekday.
Rowling, JK. Harry Potter
Sachar, Louis. Holes
Schröder, Rainer M. Abby Lynn: Verbannt ans Ende der Welt.
Speare, Elizabeth George. The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Stork, Francisco X. Marcelo in the Real World.
Temple, Frances.The Ramsey Scallop
Turner, Megan Whalen. The Thief
Vande Velde, Vivian. Now You See It
Van Draanen, Wendelin. Flipped.
Webster, Jean. Daddy Long-Legs
White, Robb. The Lion's Paw.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie series
Wrede, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief

Books for adults:

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White
Enger, Leif. Peace Like a River
Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair
Gogol, Nikolai. Dead Souls
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Henderson, Zenna. The People short stories
Hugo, Victor. Les Miserables
Meyer, Stephenie. The Host
Newman, Sharan.
Peters, Elizabeth
Peters, Ellis. Never Pick Up Hitchhikers! and other mysteries (especially the modern ones)
Pratchett, Terry. Discworld series.
Sayers, Dorothy L. Gaudy Night
Tey, Jacqueline. Brat Farrar
Nonfiction by the Leakeys
Thor Heyerdahl
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina
Willis, Connie. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog Winspeare, Jacqueline, Maisie Dobbs

For writers

2007-06-30T08:24:00.001+01:00

This is for people who want to write a children's/YA book, or at least find out how the whole process works.

First, a quick word on what children's/YA books are not. They are not

Preachy sermons (Struwwelpeter doesn't fly these days, sorry)
Excuses for giving kids guilt trips (How Tommy Conceded His Mom was Right, and Cleaned Up His Room)
Long, badly-metered rhymes about Timmy Teapot and Patsy Potholder
Condescending, because after all, kids are "dumber" than adults

(If you don't know what's wrong with these examples, you should definitely a) spend more time with actual children, and b) read some books published in the last five years)

So what makes a good book?

That is a subjective question! For me, it's a book that has

interesting, complex characters I can relate to
who DO something
which has a palpable effect on themselves, others, or Life in General
and has a conclusion
(that gives hope).

(It's a given that the book is written in clean, strong prose.)

How do you write a book?

That varies per person. Generally the writer sees or hears something that sparks an idea, and from there the story unfolds. I ask a lot of "what if?" questions about my characters. What if these two people were together in a room? What would they do? What if this happened to my main character? What choices would s/he make? And eventually a storyline starts to emerge. Then you write a first draft.

That's first draft. As in, the first of many. Every book goes through numerous revisions until the prose is just right and the story tells only what needs to be told, and no more. Editor Cheryl Klein has some excellent resources on revision once you have that first draft. Most writers show their writing to trusted friends to help them catch parts they may not have explained well enough, or places that are confusing, or wording that's unclear. It's important to find someone (or some-ones) who will both see where you are trying to take your book and can explain where you're going off course.

After you and your critique buddies have done your best, the book is ready to go out into the world and be seen by editors and/or agents--and once it's acquired, it undergoes the same process all over again, until it's ready to be printed and distributed to bookstores. (Moral: critiques don't go away, so develop that dragon hide!)

How do I get an agent and/or editor?

Check out the links below to find agent/editor listings, or look in the yearly Children's Writers and Illustrators Market. Follow the directions for the house/agency you are interested in. For picture books, you often send the whole text (typed straight through onto a couple pages) and a cover letter. For longer works, you most often send a query letter (see www.agentquery.com for how to do that) and sometimes sample chapters. If they like it, they'll ask to see more.

When submitting a query and/or manuscript, be sure to follow industry standard formatting. (The Children's Writers and Illustrators Market can help you there.) Trust me, no agent or editor will be impressed by the following:

Handwritten text
A manuscript bound up like a "real book"
Anything in weird fonts on colorful paper (Times New Roman and Courier are standard)
Anything encased in paper mache sculpture
A submission accompanied by letters from your lawyer or glamour pictures of yourself

So, I can get rich quick if I write some children's books, right?

Uh, no. Publishing works at a glacial pace, and has few monetary returns, especially in children's books. Also, writing children's books is NOT easier than writing for adults.

All the same…

Keep in mind that money flows to the author. If you ever encounter an "agent" or an "editor" who wants you to pay them to do their job, run. They are not legitimate. Yes, an agent gets a commission--on books they've sold. Not before.

Some excellent links for children's writers:

www.verlakay.com
www.scbwi.org
http://www.absolutewrite.com/ (Not just for children's. Check out the forums for researching agents/editors.)
www.agentquery.com and
www.publishersmarketplace.com for agent research
www.ala.org to see what books have won awards lately
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqjo1w/ (Cheryl Klein's site)
http://www.chavelaque.blogspot.com/ (Cheryl Klein's blog)
http://raleva31.livejournal.com (agent Rachel Vater's blog)
http://pubrants.blogspot.com (agent Kristin Nelson's blog)

Read every day, write every day, and enjoy the process!

My writing

2007-06-30T08:02:00.011+01:00

Articles:

"Keeping an Eye on Contests," SCBWI Bulletin, Jan/Feb 2008, p. 22.
"Internet Resources Every Children's Writer Should know," SCBWI Michigan News, Nov/Dec 2006, p. 4.