maybe genius

IT'S A TRAP: Focusing on the Drivel

2012-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: 1000 Ships

Time for IT'S A TRAP! These posts are intended as somewhat humorous (but true) tributes to traps that we writers occasionally find ourselves falling into. Disclaimer: there are always exceptions to every rule.

IT'S A TRAP!: Focusing on the Drivel

I don't know about you, but I've heard some variation of the following come out of a lot of writer mouths: "There are no good books in bookstores these days. It's all the same stupid formula. Originality is dead. Publishers won't publish anything but Twilight ripoffs. Everyone gets down on self-publishing, but there are terrible trade-published books, too. I write WAY BETTER than the crap they publish. They have no taste. They're driven by money, they don't care about ART."

And hey, I try to be very supportive of writers in every stage of their writing life and through whichever path they decide to take, be it going with major publisher, an indie, or self-publishing. However, nothing will make me roll my eyes and go elsewhere faster than writers who espouse this attitude.

1.) "There are no good books in bookstores these days." If you honestly believe this, then you either have an extremely skewed idea of what constitutes a good book -- maybe you think the only "good" books are classics written by long-dead white men -- or you don't read very much new literature at all. Literature is overall subjective, naturally, but that doesn't mean objective duds don't exist. Of course they do. Not even publishers are perfect judges of 100% quality literature. However, the existence of duds never negates the existence of strong, powerful novels. If you claim you can't find those novels, you aren't looking very hard.

I'm a very difficult person to impress. Even so, I can still recognize the strengths of works that I don't particularly care for. If you can't, that's probably something you should work on.

2.) "It's all the same stupid formula. Originality is dead. Publishers won't publish anything but Twilight ripoffs." If I hear you say this, I pretty much assume that you definitely don't read very much. This is ridiculously and patently untrue. I notice the way people who make this claim seem to fall back on the same super-popular books for comparison. Harry Potter ripoff! Twilight ripoff! Da Vinci Code ripoff! No, guys. You are being willfully stubborn if you claim everything being published today is a _______ ripoff. Yes, mimicry happens. It's not as common as you think. Some plots/storylines are archetypal.

This claim also seems to carry the underhanded implication that THE SPEAKER is the lone original wolf amid the sea of bland sheep. And I'm very sorry to say this, but none of us are the singularly-original special snowflake visionaries we see ourselves as.

3.) "Everyone gets down on self-publishing, but there are terrible trade-published books, too." Sure. There's crap everywhere. You might even venture to say that most of everything is crap, because that's just the way greatness works. It's not a common thing. That said, this attitude strays dangerously close to, "If *I* write crap, someone should publish it!"

This isn't to say that your writing isn't good, or that it won't find an audience. Just that this attitude belies a sort of acceptance that because sub-par books sometimes make it through the ringer, it excuses people from trying to make theirs better.

4.) "I write WAY BETTER than the crap they publish." This one always makes me cringe. I always encourage self-confidence in writers. I think it's a very good and powerful thing to believe in ourselves and our writing. It comes across in our attitude and correspondence. However, there is confidence, and then there is arrogance. This is arrogance.

5.) "They have no taste. They're driven by money, they don't care about ART." Uh huh. Look, publishing is a business. YES, THEY CARE ABOUT MONEY. Yes, they publish celebrity books by Snooki because she MAKES MONEY. Making money is one of those evils that comes with business management. However, making money means they CAN invest in unknowns and care about art. And they do. Try to stop looking at all the (arguably terrible) big money-makers and start looking at the smaller, quieter books full of beauty coming out every day. Maybe you should even support them. Supporting the "good" books means more "good" books will be released.

I am absolutely not the sort of writer who's down on self-publishing. I think it's a legitimate option and it's amazing that writers can take their career into their own hands that way. However, I also think it's pointless to simultaneously crap on the "competition." It smacks of bratty two-year-old behavior. Publishing in all its forms is currently evolving and changing every year. This is an AMAZING time to be a writer.

Don't fall into this trap. There's room for all of us in this world.

On Menstruation

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Skeleton

If you're immediately freaking out at the idea of discussing menstruation, then you need to stay and read this. Don't run away. Don't do it. I will chase you down and bring you right back. This is something that needs to be talked about.

Menstruation is something that's viewed as a big, dirty secret. I've lost count of the number of boys/men I've come across who have absolutely no idea what it is or how it actually works, despite dating many girls/women. I've lost count of the number of GIRLS AND WOMEN I've come across who don't really understand what's happening to their body, they just know it's gross and dirty and something to be ashamed of.

Look: I am not going to sit here and pretend to be Sally Feminist, Spokeswoman of Rejoicing in Your Bloodtime. I know that periods can be terrible. Like, really terrible. I know they can make us feel sick or uncomfortable or alien in our own bodies. But they do happen. They are natural. And the avoidance and "EW GROSS" attitude that a lot of men (and women) adapt around them is ridiculous. There are all sorts of stigmas and stereotypes attached to it. That it turns females into raging hosebeasts for no apparent reason. That it makes them burst into tears because you didn't compliment their haircut. That they eat a lot of junk food and dress in sweatpants and watch reruns of *insert super girly show here* and generally forget how to be sexy and desirable in any way.

Obviously, these are all incredibly sexist stereotypes. It implies that a woman's job is to always be a sexual creature for the pleasure of others and that if she can't be sexual (aka she's on the rag and EW GROSS WHO WOULD GO THERE), then she turns into Frumpy McFrumppants. It implies that one of the biggest differentiating factors between men and women (the fact that we menstruate and they do not) heightens our stereotypical irrationality and bitchiness. Yet, these stereotypes are perpetuated by BOTH sexes. Constantly.

Premenstrual Syndrome is a very real thing. It can cause bloating, hormonal mood swings, cramping, fatigue, food cravings, and all of that. It's silly to pretend that this isn't reality. That said, it is blown wildly out of proportion and is largely misunderstood. Some women experience very severe PMS and need to be treated medically. For ACTUAL MEDICAL ISSUES, not "hurr hurr bitch so crazy she needs Paxil." Others experience very few, if any, symptoms. However, if a woman puts a toe out of line and acts in a way that doesn't perfectly fit with the ideal of the nice, kind, sweet, hospitable woman, what happens? BITCH MUST BE ON THE RAG. ARE YOU ON YOUR PERIOD OR SOMETHING? Never mind that PMS occurs PRE THE MENSTRUATION and most symptoms alleviate when a women is actually menstruating. Misconceptions are fun!

All of this is goofy. Utterly goofy. Many women continue to feel sexual while menstruating. We experience frustration, sadness, and anger due to the events happening at the time, not due to the state of our uterus. We do not become a barren wasteland of femininity. Some of us continue our lives in the face of discomfort, pain, and stress. Some of us don't get periods at all. People don't ever consider how potentially hurtful and nasty it can be to make a period comment to a woman struggling with infertility or gender assignment or hormonal balance issues, do they? Not that period comments aren't generally nasty anyway, but you know what I mean.

What's my point in all this? I think menstruation is something that's all too commonly glossed over in fiction. I'm not suggesting that we include it if it doesn't fit the story at hand, just as we don't normally include using the toilet or showering unless it's relevant to the plot. But we should work on the attitude of avoiding menstruation because it's GROSS and ICKY and NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT. Teenage girls are already menstruating, or they're getting ready to start. There is no better time to establish the foundation that their period is NOT something to be grossed out or ashamed about. This is part of their lives. It helps to explore the themes and metaphors of discovering sexuality and womanhood (or even the emotions involved with NOT having one's period normally and how that can make them feel).

I mean, avoidance is a common thing. Can't deal with periods in a romance because EEEWWW SO NOT SEXY. Can't deal with it in adventures because the girl's fighting evil, she can't be bothered with PERIODS. There are vampires in a high school who GO BONKERS WHEN THEY SMELL BLOOD, but ew ew ew let's not talk about the school full of menstruating girls because that's sooooo nasty. Come on. We can man and woman up about this.

I remember being ten or eleven years old and reading ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET for the first time and being completely floored that these characters were talking about periods like normal girls. They asked each other what it was like. They shared their stories. They felt worried and excited and scared. I was on the cusp of puberty! I could relate!

There's so much rich material to be explored in coming-of-age stories, if only we're willing to let go of our hang-ups and stereotypes. And again, I'm not suggesting we include menstruation just to make a point or if it doesn't fit with the flow (har har) of the narrative. Maybe I'm just asking us to think critically about our own perceptions and guilt issues and annoyances about menstruation and look at the way we are (or aren't) portraying it in fiction. Even something as simple as rethinking period jokes ("Ohmigod, Jodi is being such a bitch, is she on her period?") is a start.

What say you, readers?

Rookie Mag

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Make Me Stay

So I just discovered this:

Rookie Mag

I'm kind of in love with it. It's an online "magazine" for teenage girls, and it's wonderfully written with humor and heart and amazing. Read some. You'll like it.

Breaking Down: THE FIFTH ELEMENT

2012-01-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: When 'You're' Around

Let's talk about one of my favorite movies of all time: THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

I do a lot of comparisons between literature and film, which can be problematic for a number of reasons -- they're very different mediums with very different "rules" -- but at their core, they're both methods of storytelling. Studying one can certainly help you understand the other, or teach you to think outside the creative box. If you've been studying writing for a while, then you're probably aware of the three-act structure and how it relates to both film and writing.

And now I'd like to skip ahead and talk about WHY I LOVE THE FIFTH ELEMENT SO MUCH and how I think a lot of what they do right in this film can be studied and applied to our own storytelling. They certainly do some things wrong (ridiculous skimpy outfits for young females that make no sense for functionality and occupation WHHYYYYYY), but I'd like to focus on the "good" parts.

Worldbuilding

THE FIFTH ELEMENT knocks it out of the park here. "Worldbuilding" is one of those nebulous terms that's often thrown about in speculative fiction, and it can be difficult to nail. This film is a great example of how to do it right. We get a defined sense of how this futuristic world differs from our own socially, technologically, politically, economically, and more. The makers of this film considered everything from fashion and style to interracial (and interspecies) political relations and military practices. Granted they're often unrealistic and silly (AGAIN WITH THE LADIES' OUTFITS), but attention was paid in order to create a breathing world.

Characterization

ROOB-EE ROOOODDDDDD. There are no two-dimensional or boring characters in this film. Everyone, no matter how small their part, is given a personality and quirks. Who can forget the thief wearing the hallway picture hat and his goofy little dance? Significant attention was paid to people's past, occupation, and culture when building their character. The priests are traditional and always try to do right. Ruby is the epitome of spoiled celebrity. Even Corbin's mother, who we never once see on screen, is given enough personality that we know what sort of person she is.

Action, Action, Action

THE FIFTH ELEMENT is non-stop entertainment from go. There's always something high-octane going on to propel the plot forward and entertain the audience. I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to write MOAR EXPLOSIONS into their manuscripts (although I'm rarely opposed to a good explosion), but there's a valuable lesson here. Never. Let. Your. Audience. Get. Bored.

Active Protagonists

LeeLoo is a quintessential Action Girl well-versed in the art of waif-fu, but she makes it work because there's more to her character than neat fight scenes. She's passionate. She's emotional. She cares and protects. She is literally the key element to this film. Without her, the universe would be engulfed in blackness. The plot doesn't happen to her -- she IS the plot. Corbin's a bit of a reluctant hero, but when he finally decides to step up, he really steps up.

Interesting Villain

Gary Oldman's character, Zorg, is anything but ho-hum. He's snide, he's funny, he's ruthless, he's pompous, he's afraid, he's greedy. He's motivated by something other than MWA HA HA HA. This is so, so important in building a villain that really works and doesn't make the audience want to roll their eyes. Villains who do evil things "cuz I can hurr hurr hurr" or "cuz i've lost my mind hurr hurr hurr" are boring and static. Give them a motivation. Hell, make them sort of LIKEABLE.

Humor

I'm one of those writers who believes that humor can be injected into even the bleakest and most tragic of situations. And humor is HARD to write. It's easy for me to write an emotional scene. It's much more difficult to write a funny scene. THE FIFTH ELEMENT is absolutely teeming with humor. These characters are facing the destruction of the entire universe. People die. Things seem hopeless. And yet the writers are never forget to keep humor up their sleeve.

Heart

We can never forget that in order to write (or film) a truly great story, we have to make our audience care. They have to be able to get behind our characters and want them to succeed. Sometimes the goal of saving THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE is big enough. And sometimes the thing the audience cares most about is that the characters are happy and loved. Whatever the heart of your story is, make sure you deliver.

What have you learned about storytelling from YOUR favorite films?

SOPA, Piracy, and Writers

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Brain Stew

I apologize for not posting on Wednesday, but I was going dark in protest of SOPA and PIPA like every other sheepish nerd on the Internet. I'M SURE YOU WERE CRUSHED BY MY ABSENCE. If you're unaware of SOPA and PIPA, I highly recommend you run a Google search and read up.

As for why I even care, I will refer you to this blog post by Chuck Wendig. That's why I care. He brings up a great point: of course authors would be all anti-piracy and junk! BOO to people who illegally download our books and stuff! But I don't really buy it. I'm just not convinced that a significant amount of authorial (and other creative) income is siphoned away by Internet pirates. I also tend to subscribe to the argument that people who pirate entertainment were never going to BUY it, anyway. You don't pirate something you intended to pay money for.

I mean, I know in my hypothetical youth when I used to hypothetically use this hypothetical program called Napster, I didn't hypothetically download albums I intended to buy. I hypothetically downloaded music from little-known artists and discovered a lot of new music that way. If I liked it, THEN I bought more. Or I bought tickets to see their shows. Now that I am past my broke college student days, I either listen to Spotify or I purchase the music I want to listen to.

I mean, this is classic marketing. You give a track or a chapter or a clip away for free. Some people will take the freebie and walk away. Some people will enjoy the freebie and throw some money at you. Some people will enjoy the freebie, but not enough to throw money at you, so they'll go download it illegally. Again, those people were never GOING to give you their money.

Of course piracy sucks. Of course it's infuriating to spend all this time and energy and WORK on something and then have someone push a button and take it without paying for it. But it's something I'm personally choosing not to worry about. 1) I'd drive myself to frothing rage, 2) I was never going to see that money anyway, and 3) at least they're reading my work, I guess. Maybe next time they'll pay for it. (Spoken like someone who already has a book out lololololol what am I doing).

There are always going to be people who care. Those are the people who will support you monetarily. There are always going to be people who are selfish and lazy. Those people are never going to give a crap about your arguments about how they're DESTROYING CREATIVITY and TAKING FOOD OUT OF YOUR MOUTH. They don't care. They just want stuff. Personally, I feel like it's better to focus on the people who care.

I don't think anti-piracy legislation is overreachingly wrong or stupid. I think there's some merit to the idea that creative projects should be shared whether there's money exchanging hands or not, but I also understand that this is how a lot of people make their living and it is, at its core, stealing. I just think it's better to handle it with a more steady hand and established methods, rather than a panicky KILL IT WITH FIRE sort of approach.

ANYWAY BLAH BLAH BLAH LOL WHATEVER.

Have a nice weekend, dudes!

Jackson Pearce on Being A Writer

2012-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Soooooooooo I totally didn't plan a post for today. Oops.

Here's a video of Jackson Pearce talking about Being A Writer. I hope you enjoy it in place of my brain fuzz.

Direct link if embed isn't working.

Permission to Feel Your Feelings

2012-01-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Permafrost

I'm getting a little personal today. Some of you may be able to relate, some may not. I don't know. But it's something I want to talk about. And this is my blog so deal with it.

Let's discuss the squelching of feelings. I don't know if this is obvious in the way I post, but I have A LOT OF FEELINGS. Of course I do. I'm a Virgo, an optimist, a passivist, an artist, a sensitive soul, and all that blah blah blah. Which translates to: lots of feelings. I can occasionally get very silly on the Internet, but I don't often expose those SERIOUS EMOTIONS in their raw, unwashed glory. Most of my posts tend to err on the side of critical analysis or humor. I think about things before I post. I think about them so much.

I didn't used to be this way. I used to be that person who would react immediately and emotionally to things. Sometimes it was well received. Sometimes it bit me. Over time, I learned to keep my feelings more buttoned-up and not display my heart so openly on my sleeve. At least, not in public.

But there are things that happen in the life of writers. Things that we keep close to the chest and end up feeling massively guilty about. And I wanted to come out and tell myself, and anyone reading this, that having feelings is okay. It is okay to let emotion come in and wash over everything and nestle inside. It's what you do with that emotion that matters.

This is mostly coming from someplace I'm sure at least a few other people can relate to. Back in The Before, I used to get the weirdest sensation when someone in my blogging/Twitter/forum/whatever writing circle would achieve a publishing milestone. When someone announced they signed with an agent, or got a book deal, or sold rights in 20 countries, or had their novel optioned to be a film, or whatever whatever whatever... every time that would happen, I would feel panicked.

Don't get me wrong. I was honestly and truly overjoyed for them, and would tell them so. I'm not the sort of person who will put on a big smile and go "OH YAY CONGRATULATIONS" unless I absolutely mean it from the heart. But that joy and excitement never quite cancelled out the creepy little goblin who would come in the back door of my mind and whisper his creepy little words.

"What's the matter with you? Why isn't it YOU making this post?"

"You may as well quit now. You'll never get there. That person has skill and luck you'll never have."

"You'd better hurry. All the spots are going to be taken soon. That's one less agent, one less editor's list spot. Soon it'll be too late for you."

"Pffffft, look at you, loser. That person is 21. TWENTY-ONE. And they have a three-book deal. Give up now, you 28-year-old failure."

"You want that. You want that so badly. You can't have it. They have it, you don't. You suck."

I'm not the only person with a talking goblin living in their brain, right? ... right?

These doubts and emotions hid between my ribs, curling like teensy snakes around my insides. I'd slip into funks. I'm so glad I had my fiance, because he's one of the big reasons I kept pushing. I mean, at the time I'd get really peeved at him for going, "DO YOU WANT TO BE THAT JERK WHO ALWAYS TALKED ABOUT WRITING A BOOK AND NEVER DID IT?" But it got me moving again.

Here's the worst part about all this: I know better. I know that I don't suck. I know that I'm not a failure because someone younger than me got an agent before I did. I know it is completely ridiculous to think that there are a finite number of spots to fill and once they're full, nope, no more book deals, NOT EVER. I know this! But the feelings and emotions associated with this roller coaster don't go away.

So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to pull a Jack-and-Kate-from-the-first-episode-of-Lost on myself. I'm going to say, "All right, self. Look. It's okay to have those doubts. It's okay to let them in. You go ahead and let them loose for a minute, and then you reel them right back in and say THAT'S IT. This isn't about never having negative feelings. It's about pushing past them. Over, and over, and over."

/cheesy

All that said, I'm pretty happy with where I am right at this moment. I'm a little terrified and a lot nervous and pretty tired and still vaguely neurotic, but I'm happy. And I like happy. So happy stays.

How do you deal with your writer goblins?

The Trouble With Coming Back From the Dead

2012-01-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second

This post has nothing to do with zombies. But it does have a lot to do with characters that come back from the dead.

Do you watch soap operas? Probably not. Neither do I. But I know people who do, and I've seen enough snippets to know that it's not at all uncommon for a character to be killed off and then brought back later in some form. Long lost twin! Ghost! Witch's spell! Time travel! Reanimated by aliens! They didn't really die! Or whatever!

And let's face it, cheesy soap operas are not the only television shows that fall victim to these tropes. Some great television dramas use them as well, to varying effect. Buffy. Lost. Doctor Who. X-Files. When used sparingly and cleverly, this trope can be very effective at surprising the audience or creating a powerful emotional moment. Sometimes a writer is so skilled that they can create an emotional tidal wave even when the audience KNOWS the character is coming back. However, it can also be overdone, which leads to kind of a big problem.

If you repeatedly kill and resurrect a favorite character, their death starts to lose its freshness and emotional impact. It may even become a running joke. Not a good thing, unless a running gag was your intention (Jack Harkness, anyone?).

Television and novels are very different mediums, of course. With television, there's a lot of pressure to maintain ratings, which may in turn cause pressure to bring back a fan favorite who had previously received the axe. That's all well and good for the fans who wanted the character back again, but some of the storyline's integrity and characterization may be compromised in the process.

Think of this example: Series 5 & 6 of Doctor Who (SPOILERS). Rory is repeatedly "killed," only to be resurrected again and again.The first time, his death was emotionally crushing, even though we suspected it was temporary. The second time, it was even more powerful, because that instance seemed like it could be permanent. After he came back again and died again, the emotional investment began to wane. The audience's reaction to a Rory death became a punchline. How will he die this time? No need to get upset, he'll be back.

Now think of Harry Potter. Characters who die remain dead. Think of how visceral, how gutting, it was to lose someone in the Harry Potter universe. If they died, they were gone. Any resurrection at all came in the form of ghosts, shadows, echos of the past. That emotion was real, and raw, and powerful. It never lost its potency. There was a chance of seeing a favorite character again, but as the Resurrection Stone showed us, they'd always be beyond the veil. We, and Harry, could never touch them again.

This isn't to say that Harry Potter does death right and Doctor Who does death wrong. Not at all. There are always risks involved with character death, and there are many tropes to play with and explore. The Doctor Who universe has played with character death in many forms, many of them very successful at resonating with the audience. Likewise, there are those who are critical of Rowling for being so "brutal" and "careless" in cutting down her characters.

But as with anything else in fiction, it's important to think about what we want to portray. Death is a metaphor for many things. It's literal for many things. Bringing someone back from the dead is a fantasy. An understandable one, but a fantasy nonetheless. Sometimes we lose the people we love, and it's terrible and angry-making and destructive. Death is a mystery. It's an end and a beginning. There are valid reasons for resurrection, but we should make sure that playing with audience emotion -- or pandering to audience whim -- isn't one of them. That's a cheap out. We can do better.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on death and life and death and life and death?

On the "insipidness" of YA

2012-01-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: I Will

I'm kind of cheating at blogging today and re-posting something I put up on AbsoluteWrite this weekend. But it's something I'm really interested in! And I want to talk about it more! Yeah. Long post ahead, but I hope you'll read and comment. I'm very interested in your thoughts.

So, Walter Dean Myers (author of MONSTER, HOOPS, and many other books about urban teen life) was recently named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, right? Well, his appointment inspired this article in which a former high school teacher and literature lover speaks against his placement and implies that YA is not and can not be the equivalent of "literature that should elevate."

Originally Posted by Alexander Nazaryan:

"But [Myers'] mission is bound to fail, I am afraid. I thought it then, as I watched boys wrestle between desks over who would read “Bad Boy” or “Hoops” next. I think it now, with Myers having ascended to the heights of the YA world. Because while his own story is inspiring, his books are insipid.

I think that because I am an unashamed, unapologetic believer that the purpose of literature is to elevate. Not to entertain, to problematize or to instruct, but to take what Hamlet called our “unweeded garden” and revel in its thorns. Not to make the world pretty, but to make it true, and by making it true, make it beautiful. All real art is high art.

Myers’ books on the other hand, are painfully mundane, with simple moral lessons built into predictable situations: the projects, prison, redemption."

Basically, the guy is saying that kids reading YA is essentially a pointless exercise that will get them nowhere and teach them nothing of value, and that they should be reading "the classics" in order to gain true value from literature. This is, of course, flawed thinking for numerous reasons, but that wasn't even what caught my eye in this article.

What caught my eye were some of the comments.

Originally Posted by Rigsy:

"I think the phrase, "the purpose of literature is to elevate. Not to entertain, to problematize or to instruct," will be a point of contention. The reason is that the terms are broad, and you left them undefined.

...

My point is that [had you better defined your points,] you'd have covered your ass for the inevitable reaction from the consistently childish YA industry. And if they couldn't pick on that, they might have to present their own ideas for literature, for whatever goals might be considered worthwhile (or those that may be considered unworthy). It would certainly elevate the conversation.

But I get the impression from YA professionals (mostly the writers I've met, and they have been legion), that they don't like to think harder thoughts. Often, they popped over to the YA side because the community has that air of do-as-you-please carelessness. The critics mostly assess work based on whether or not they liked the protagonist. And anyone trying to grapple with the tough questions is pretentious. I get the impression that many of them haven't quite dealt with their own high school experiences, or wish to revisit them now that they're sufficiently strong enough to handle it. Much of Twitter, the blogs, etc, seems to be a population of grown-ups acting like their characters...and let's face it, kids don't like homework."

Originally Posted by Alexander Nazaryan:

"The following comment was related to me (author of the above original post) by Catherine McCredie, a senior editor of young adult fiction at Penguin Group Australia. Her response, in full:

This is (to my ears) a fresh and welcome attack on contemporary young adult literature. Those of us who produce YA literature are used to hearing that too much of it is too dark, but we don’t usually hear it’s too insipid. And I agree that most of it probably is, just as most contemporary adult novels probably are – especially compared with the ancient classics.

As someone whose job it is, in part, to look out for new talent, I search for that manuscript that has ‘the life force’ amid the reams of competent but uninspired writing that we receive, and have rarely seen it. So much of it, like so many people you encounter, is just mimicry.

..."

Note: That last quote is taken out of context, so you should definitely go read the entire comment at the bottom of the comment thread, but the point made here is the one that caught my eye.

These comments naturally made me do the squinty side-eye, but I don't know that I think they're entirely unfounded. This is how people outside the YA community view it. They look at (some of) us and how we act and respond to criticism of our work or genre, and they see a tightly-knit group of grown-up children who like to stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la" after they pat each other on the back.

This is something I think about a lot a lot a lot. I write genre fiction. I am under no illusions that I'm writing the next great work of literary nirvana or anything. Even so, I do want my work to be literary. I want it to be elevated. This is exactly why I buck so hard every time someone (usually not a writing/publishing professional) tells me they think my writing is too "high" for teenagers. No, it isn't. I wrote it that way on purpose. Because I think teenagers deserve and can handle elevated language and themes. So there.

I want to be told if my work is not as good as it could be. I want it to be better. I want to eventually write something that will shut the mouths of all these people who think literature written for youth is this immature, lesser, invaluable thing.

And because of this, the comments above make me cringe and make me angry, but I don't think they're entirely off the mark. This is why I get so upset when the YA community behaves in the way of the recent (and past) Goodreads and blog war debacles. Because that kind of stuff just proves these people right. Unless we can show them, not just tell them, but SHOW THEM, that we are capable of handling criticism like professionals and adults, then what they're saying holds water. This is why I think it's important for us to learn to think critically of ourselves and our community and not fall into the trap of isolation and surrounding ourselves with yes-men.

At the same time, I think it's dangerous to get into specifics about which books are "quality literature" and which are "insipid." Obviously, that is highly subjective and NO ONE will agree. Nor should they. Not everyone is at the same reading level or has the same reading needs. I admit I tend to fall on the side of intellectualism, but even so, I acknowledge the value and merits of what most people would call "fluff" fiction. Not everyone wants or needs a complex brain workout with their literature. Reading is reading. There should be something out there for everyone.

Okay, now I'm totally rambling and this post is WAY WAY WAY TL;DR and I apologize. But I thought it'd be an interesting discussion topic to bring to the table.

So. Thoughts?

HEY ASSBUTT.

2012-01-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life gets a little nuts and you feel like your brain's been cooked and then cut into slices for someone to eat on rye toast, so writing a blog post is lower down on your list of things to get done than it usually is.

NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT.

Anyway, here's a funny video that has left me laughing all week. Obligatory warning: contains a mild curse word (duh), some brief fantasy violence, and sorta spoilers for the fifth season finale of Supernatural. But it's very funny.

Direct link here if the embed isn't working.

The Best Writing Advice I Can Give

2012-01-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Mr. Pitiful

This is the very best, truest writing advice I've been given and will probably ever be able to give: Listen to your own truth, but don't block out everyone else's.

Like all of the other writing advice blog posts out there in Writerland, this one has been repeated over, and over, and over. And I'm repeating it again.

You are your own best judge of what you're trying to do with your words. You cannot possibly follow every rule and insider tidbit you're fed. It's not possible, because so many of them contradict one another. You have to figure out which writer ideals you admire most, and why. Study them. Understand what draws you to certain styles of writing. Then branch away and follow the letters wherever they lead you. This is your journey. No one can tell you how to walk or where to go or how long to try or if you should give up.

But. But.

Do not become arrogant or bitter. Do not ignore the basic building blocks. Do not discount the advice of those who walked before you out of jealousy, or spite, or ego, or whatever. Listen. Always listen. Just because you listen doesn't mean you have to agree, but you should always know why you disagree. None of us are beyond learning. Not a single one of us. If you believe you are the most talented, that you need no guidance, that you already write on par with the greats before you? Then I hate to break this to you, but you are at the beginning. Not the end.

There is no "right way" here. There is no enemy, except perhaps ignorance. If you are always open to growth, always ready to listen, always willing to learn, then you will become better. And then you will become good. And then you will become great. And then you will become legendary.

Even if it's only to one person.

Even if it's only to yourself.

I think it is so, so desperately important to believe in yourself, your craft, and your voice. But I think in order to do that, to truly get to that place, you have to learn and remain open to learning. Knowledge never limits us. It only helps us understand.

So listen and decide for yourself.

Then write.

Why I Love the Wounded Jackass

2012-01-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Baleen Morning

Pacey Witter, 15-year-old me adored you.

Heads-up: this post will contain some spoilers for the television show Veronica Mars. If you are uninterested in being spoiled, skip that part.

If you shamelessly watch teen dramas and paranormal shows like I do, there's a good chance you've come across a certain sort of character. He's sometimes known as a "Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold" or that guy who masks his SECRET PAIN with sarcastic quips and occasional douchebaggery. I like to call him the Wounded Jackass.

And I looooooooove him.

Now, I don't think I've made it a secret that I'm not especially fond of male romantic leads that are serious jerks. Not like secret sweethearts with a tough shell, but honest-to-goodness condescending assholes. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes this character strays dangerously close or starts out that way (LOGAN ECHOLLS, I'M LOOKING AT YOU). I really think this guy has to be handled just right to stay on the side of sympathetic character rather than super-creep. Even then, he's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

I'm also hard-pressed to think up female examples of this character. I'm sure they exist, but they're very rare. Which is unfortunate. It harkens back to the double standard that says men are allowed to put on their bitchface to mask their pain and they're just being understandably (and attractively) broody, whereas if a woman does it, she's just a bitch and no one wants to be around her. Uncool, gender double standards. Uncool.

Oh, Logan. You cut the line real close.

So, if I'm so anti-belittling jerkwad, why do I embrace this character so readily? Why am I all about the characters whose rough exteriors and sarcastic smartassery belie their tragic, tragic little wounded souls?

Because it is so, so human. We all put on masks and draw up our defensive walls to cover our insecurities or soft spots. I can appreciate a good Moat of Sarcasm. And let's not pretend that it isn't the secret wish of a lot of girls that their crush's teasing and jackassy ways are just hiding the gentle soul they'll reveal to us when we've sufficiently breached his defenses. Also, comic relief.

There's a fine line in the sand between a character who's just kind of a smarmy wise-ass and a character who lets his nastiness truly shine. I mentioned Logan Echolls of Veronica Mars earlier, and man, is this a character I have a love-hate relationship with. At the start of the series, we're really set up to loathe the guy. He doesn't tease. He's mean. He's cruel. Even when (SPOILERS) something begins to bloom between him and Veronica, his characterization is never easy. Yeah, he's got daddy issues. Yes, he tries to be a better person (eventually). But he never completely loses that jerky dark streak, and eventually Veronica has to walk away.

These guys like being in cars, I guess.

And that, I think, is what saved the character for me. He's not perfect. He's not full of sweetness and light at his core. And the title character eventually refuses to remain romantically involved with him and his self-destructive behavior. Logan tries, he does, but it's not enough, and the show wasn't afraid to let the relationship come to a messy end. That's real. That's true. Like Veronica, part of us still loves Logan, but we know he's not right for her.

Dean Winchester of Supernatural is another one of these. All of his smartass jokes can't always hide the fact that he's hurting. A lot. I can't help but love Dean. He's done some horrible things, yet he's still so sympathetic. We understand. He pushes people away because he's so afraid to lose more of the people he cares about. He's afraid of failing. Supernatural is a little different in their approach in that they build a brother-brother relationship dynamic, rather than a romantic one.

These characters are human. We can relate. We love them because we see all their sides. They differ from other jerkass characters because if they behave in a way that crosses a line, other characters call them on it and react accordingly. There's none of this excusing abusive or cruel behavior. When Pacey blows up at Prom and verbally berates Joey, she dumps his ass. When Logan does something Veronica finds inexcusable, she dumps his ass. When Dean crosses a line and says something he can't take back, Sam beats the crap out of him. The characters grow. They learn. Sometimes they change. They get over themselves and apologize or try to be better.

If only people could learn from their mistakes in real life, eh? If only we were willing to walk away from them until they wised up... if they wise up.

Do you find this sort of character appealing? Why? Who's your favorite example? Bonus points if you can give me a female example!

2011 In Review

2011-12-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Movie Loves a Screen

So, 2011 was a pretty big year for me. Many things happened. I mean, many things happen every year, but this year was especially full of large, potentially life-changing events.

In January, I decided that I was going to completely scrap the then-draft that was TICK-TOCK and write it over from scratch. I sat down and focused on what I wanted to happen, what I wanted to convey, and how I was going to accomplish that. I became A Planner.

In late March, I decided to leave my job at the time, which I loved, for personal reasons. It was a tough decision, but not one I regret. Six months of unemployment followed. That was the rough part. Still, I made it through.

I wrote. A lot.

I went to Outside Lands for the first time and saw many awesome bands and hung out with one of my best friends and it was fabulous.

I saw another one of my best friends get married.

I wrote a lot more. Then I edited. Then I let people who weren't in my family read a full-length manuscript I had written for the first time and I asked them for their feedback.

My boyfriend, my love, and my partner in crime proposed to me and I became a fiancee.

I got a new job with some great coworkers that I enjoy very much. I get to do good and interesting work on a regular basis.

I attended WriteOnCon and had an awesome experience.

I finished TICK-TOCK and dipped my toes into the querying waters for the very first time. I was terrified. It was worth it.

I ate a lot of good food, drank a lot of good wine, and spent time with a lot of great people.

I struggled with feelings of inadequacy, ineptitude, and general lameness.

I felt lonely. I felt sad. I felt overjoyed.

I made several large steps toward my goal of becoming a published author. I kept up this blog. I finally became okay with calling myself an author.

All in all, I can't say I have many complaints about this year. There were some lows, but there were an awful lot of highs, and that's where I'm choosing to put my heart.

It's been a wonderful year, everyone. Thank you for spending it with me. I'm always so happy, so grateful, that you choose to take time out of your busy lives and give me a little part of yourselves. You are wonderful.

Here's to all of the big things yet to come in 2012. Happy New Year!

My Top 5 Writing Albums of 2011

2011-12-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

Hellooooooo. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday! I did. There was lots of family and friends and laughter and... wine. So much wine.

Anyway, the year's kind of winding down, so I don't have a lot of things lined up for the blog. Today I thought I'd just post something I've seen circulating around the blogs lately: my Top 5 Writing Albums from this year. I figure, hey, I like music, you like music, we all like music. So I'm sharing my writing inspiration albums with you. Hope you like them :)

In no particular order:

1. Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons

Little Lion Man was inspiration for a major scene in TICK-TOCK.

2. The String Quartet Tribute to Coheed and Cambria

I love the original band/album, but I found this instrumental tribute album to be awesome for writing. Viva la Coheed.

3. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars

There's just so much rich story material here. Love the folk/rock/country vibe.

4. Doctor Who Series 5 Soundtrack, Murray Gold

Come on, I write nerdy science fiction/steampunk. Of course this fits perfectly.

5. Middle Cyclone, Neko Case

I was apparently on a big folk/alt rock and instrumental kick this year. This album felt like a bunch of stories in song form to me. Loved it.

Happy Holidays, my loves!

2011-12-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Joy to the World

Happy Holidays to my wonderful and beautiful-in-every-way readers! May you find peace and joy in whichever way you celebrate. I wish you good tidings and a beautiful holiday.

I'll be taking a week off from blogging to visit with my family. See you next week! Lots of love from California!

What is "fridge logic?"

2011-12-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Video Games

Fridge Logic is a term that was sorta-kinda coined by Alfred Hitchcock. He described it as a scene that "hits you after you've gone home and start pulling cold chicken out of the icebox."

BUT WHAT IS IT?

In a nutshell, Fridge Logic is considered any logical inconsistency or plot hole that you missed while you were reading (because you were so wrapped up in the story, you just didn't notice it, or whatever) but that comes to you much later when you're really thinking about it. It's basically all that picking-apart of plot elements that people do long after they've read the book. It's a "wait a minute..." moment.

An example: you have a character who has to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a very tight timeframe. Say, three hours. So they hop in a car in L.A. and somehow manage to make it to San Francisco with time to spare. Now, anyone who lives in California will probably realize that this is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE, even when one is driving 100 MPH the entire way. But people who aren't familiar with the geography of the state and/or who just aren't paying close attention to the timeframe might not realize the logical inconsistency here until much later when they look up how far apart L.A. and San Francisco are and go "... wait."

Is there anything you can do about Fridge Logic? It depends. I think it's sometimes easier to minimize Fridge Logic in novels than in television, since television operates under pretty strict time constraints and has to worry about keeping audience attention with the flow of the script and all that. Television writers can't risk losing an audience's attention by listing out the painstaking logic of every little thing. And really, neither can novelists. That would make for a very boring book.

However, you do have more room to stretch and really solidify your world-building in novel form. I don't know that I've ever come across a novel that couldn't be picked to pieces on some level, but some are certainly better than others at consistent logic and closing plot holes as best they can.

In the end, it's up to the author to figure out the logic of their own fictional world and make sure it's not completely flimsy. It's up to us to decide what's truly important for the story we're trying to tell and maintaining the audience's suspense of disbelief, and what we can gloss over a little. It also usually helps to avoid breaking the rules we've set up for our own world.

But most of all, try not to sweat it too much. Someone somewhere is always going to be able to pick apart your plot and point out logical inconsistencies. No one's perfect. That said, it's no excuse to get lazy about building the strongest and most hole-free story you can.

Keeping the Melodrama Manageable

2011-12-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Silver Bells

Melodrama: Theatrical and often overstated emotional responses, sometimes accompanied by physical action, with the intended purpose of illiciting an emotional response from the reader/viewer. In other words, it's overacting. Ramping up the emotion, potentially out of proportion.

It's no secret that teenagers are often viewed as melodramatic. When something bad happens, it is THE END OF THE WORLD. There is NO RECOVERING. LIFE IS RUINED. THEY WILL NEVER LOVE AGAIN. ET CETERA.

However, it's important to keep in mind why adolescents react this way. When we're young, we quite frankly don't have the experience under our belt to be able to say, "Yes, this terrible/embarrassing thing happened, but it was really no big deal in the long run and everyone moved on." There is no long run. There's only the here and now. Most teenagers are also in an environment of trying to find their place and fit in, and they're doing that with the same people every single day for years. They can't exactly stop going to class to avoid their peers. Well, they can, but it's not a good idea.

Teenage emotion is so over-the-top because teenagers are living in a constant state of new experiences and self-discovery. Screwing up can mean being permanently branded as someone they don't want to be. Bullies pick on the weak because they're in the midst of figuring out their own crap and they're taking it out on other people. A first relationship that leads to a first breakup is so soul-shattering because that's the only experience they have to compare anything to. Of course it feels like they'll never love again! They just fell in love for the first time!

None of this is intended to be belittling. We've all been here. These emotions are real and valuable. And a lot of teenagers have wisdom beyond their years and are able to take a step back and look logically at their situation. But many of us (myself included) didn't/don't.

Unfortunately, this type of melodrama doesn't always translate well on paper. There's a delicate balance between capturing a realistic teenage experience and creating a protagonist everyone hates because they're an overdramatic whiner. There's being upset, and then there's throwing a hissy. There's the realistic gutted feeling of losing your first love, and there's whining for months about how no one understands your pain and there's no way to ever be whole again.

Melodrama exists inside our own head. Our drama is important to us, but if you asked anyone else, they'd probably tell you to get over it. Everyone else is melodramatic, too, but we're not living inside their head and being subjected to their constant whining. This can become a problem for YA novels, especially those written in the first person. We're inside the protagonist's head, which means we get to listen to everything. EVERYTHING.

How do we avoid creating a total mopey drag of a protagonist? The easiest solution is to make sure whatever they're angsting about is worth all that angst. Going on a bad date? Probably not worth three pages of angst. A close friend's death? Worth some angst. Witnessing an entire city leveled because they refused to cooperate with the bad guy? Definitely worth the angst.

A more nuanced solution is to rework how much wallowing you let you protagonist do. They're allowed to feel pain, to wonder how they can move on, to cry and mourn. Just don't let them get carried away. Let them show some inner strength and pull themselves forward, even when it hurts. Who doesn't respect a character who can push through the pain?

Can you think of any YA characters who you felt had just the right about of melodrama?

YA Common Clichés series: YA Science Fiction

2011-12-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Run The Heart

Sooooooooooo it's been a while since I've created a post for this series. Let me remedy that!

One of the best bits of advice you will hear as a writer is to read, and to read a lot. Particularly within your genre to familiarize yourself with its tropes, clichés, and what's currently selling/being published. So, I read a lot of young adult literature, which is kind of its own beast. It's a specific genre, but within that genre are any number of subjects. I'm hoping to break them down and highlight some of the more common clichés (read: stuff that is so overdone it's boring and predictable) within each area.

The goal with this series is not to ridicule, but to inform and inspire a break from the usual in today's literature. Also, clichés do not automatically make a manuscript or novel junk. If used sparingly and mindfully, they can work.

Subject #5: YA Science Fiction

Science Fiction YA is on the rise! And so are its clichés. There are still certain stigmas around sci-fi, and those unfamiliar with the genre may find themselves gravitating towards certain tropes that they think are really clever and original, but are actually extremely commonplace to those in the know. So let's get started, shall we?

Aliens and Outer Space. This is the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people when they think of science fiction. Space Operas. Doctor Who. Star Trek. Star Wars. Stargate. Starlotsofstuff. And there's nothing wrong with that! Stories set in galaxies far, far away are popular for a reason: they remind us of the newness of discovery, the great big universe outside ourselves, and stakes that are literally bigger than Planet Earth. However, a lot of newer SF writers don't even consider the broad range of science fiction that exists closer to home. Robotics! The Matrix! Genetic engineering! War simulation! If you equate SF with aliens only, look a little deeper.

The Future. A great deal of science fiction takes place in the future for obvious reasons: a lot of the science we think up hasn't been invented yet. Fair enough. But there's a lot of fun to be had in historical and present-day science fiction, as well. Even if your story is set in the future, you can still play with it. Think Firefly -- a futuristic society flavored with old-school Westerns.

Artificial Intelligence is Evil and will Kill Us All. Yeah. Everyone's scared of robots. We get it. But there is so much more philosophy about humanity and life to be explored here!

Fancy techno-gadgets. Some of these will likely be unavoidable, especially if your story is set in a futuristic society where there's, you know, futuristic technology. But sometimes writers get caught up in the cutesy technobabble and just like to throw out gadget names willy-nilly without the gadget actually adding to the atmosphere or the plot in a functional way. It's also sort of off-putting when everyone talks completely normally except for the forced techno-slang.

Morality, religion, and culture haven't changed in 1000 years. Sometimes writers forget that society shifts over time. We don't hold close to the same ideals and societal structures that our ancestors did 1000 years ago. Why are your futuristic characters still acting like 21st century teenagers? You don't have to go completely off the deep end, but some world-building and consideration of how society has changed is in order. You can even revert to an early set of ideals if it makes sense for your story.

Deux Ex Machina-style knowledge bombs. Some really heavy-level shit is going down. Something's about to explode. An airlock is about to open. The world's about to be destroyed by an asteroid. Whatever. Everything looks bleak. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a character (usually the main character) realizes they had the knowledge needed to avert disaster the whole time. Amnesia. It was hidden in their brain by SCIENCE. They have a computer chip in their neck. He was THE ONE all along. Something. POOF. Knowledge granted, crisis averted. This is a tension-destroyer and a letdown. Beware.

The bad guys are mutated, alien, malformed, or otherwise gross. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. This trope strays dangerously close to (or outright embraces) the notion that Good = human/perfect/abled/racially ideal and Bad = abnormal/unattractive/racially diverse. Be so, so careful with this.

Alien species are almost always bipedal humanoid, with the exception of the occasional cute fuzzy breed. Why's everyone in the universe gotta look like you, huh? Extra bonus points if the opposite-sex alien the protagonist meets is "even more beautiful than a human."

An alien species, the government, or a mutated race take over human bodies and use them as hosts/vehicles. One of the many forms of mind control often seen in science fiction.

Crippling plagues. Something is introduced that could (or does) essentially wipe out humanity as we know it. Bonus points if the protagonist has super special impervious DNA and the Powers That Be want to experiment on them for a cure.

Evil Scientist is toying with Very Bad Science that he should not be messing with. Chaos ensues. There's always some evil guy who wants to try his hand at this illegal or morally reprehensible science. There's little gray area here -- whatever the guy is doing, it's always viewed as bad. Why not turn this one on its head and show the positive side?

Most science fiction heroes are male. If there's a female, she's "breathtakingly beautiful," old/unattractive (and thus evil), or a pure Action Girl. This dynamic is shifting with YA, since YA is largely geared toward female audiences and written by women. Still, this is a trope to be wary of.

I see white people. So many white people. Futuristic societies are often largely Western-culture based, often American specifically. The majority of the cast is white, with perhaps a few signature minority members or alien sidekicks. Having white cast members in and of itself is not a bad thing. It's when every important character, powerful character, or good character is white that it becomes an issue. Futuristic societies would likely be a lot more diverse than your typical white-bread American town.

The main character is a super genius. Like, a SUPER DUPER genius. Mega smart. The smartest. Everything comes quickly and easily to them, and everyone wants them to be the center of their secret government organization or rebel movement. Maybe they're even the youngest captain of a starship EVER. Be mindful of not making things too easy for your protagonist, whether it's through super powers or super smarts.

What other clichés have you come across in YA science fiction?

Political Correctness vs. Free Speech

2011-12-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a little political on the blog today (hohohohohoho).

To start, I'd like to come clean about something. I don't generally like to make a big fuss about this, because frankly it's still kind of surreal to me and it's my sister's thing and I can take no credit and deserve no special attention for it. Still, I am immensely proud of her, and this is something I feel very strongly about and I think should be discussed because to this day it is still so polarizing and misunderstood.

So. I'd like you to introduce you to my sister, Lauren Potter. You may know her better as the character Becky Jackson of GLEE. If you haven't seen this video before, I will warn you that it contains offensive minority slurs used in a teaching manner.

Here is a direct link if the video embed isn't working.

There was a great post on The Book Lantern the other day about the use of the R-word in a popular book series, and that entry inspired me to write one of my own. This issue is very close to my heart for (what I assume are) obvious reasons. However, as illustrated by the comments on this video, the fact that almost half of this video's viewers "disliked" it, and my own experiences when speaking with people who don't want to give up the use of their precious non-PC slang, this is something I still feel needs discussion.

I'll start with something I posted on Twitter yesterday: the difference between free speech and political correctness.

Your Freedom of Speech is a right granted to you by the First Amendment of the US constitution (and does not apply if you are not a US citizen, BTW, unless your country has a similar governmental right). Freedom of Speech protects you from the government swooping in and forcibly silencing you. It protects your right to speak about whatever you choose, wherever and whenever you choose. Within reason. You cannot use Free Speech to inspire crime (inciting rioting), you cannot yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, you cannot use it to harass or incite fights, it does not cover lawless or obscene acts, etc.

Political Correctness is not overseen by the government. It is overseen by the people. It is not a law or a forced act, at least not in the sense that you are made to do it under penalty of imprisonment or forcible silence. Political Correctness is members of the public asking you not to be an asshole by using certain offensive terms. You certainly do not have to do it. But if you insist on doing it, the public then reserves their right to consider you an ignorant butthead. And no, you don't get to claim you're not a jerk for using an offensive term. You've been told it's offensive. It's on you if you decide to continue offending that group of people.

You do not get to decide what is and is not offensive to other people. I know it's hard to adjust speech habits and find new ways of expressing oneself, especially when we feel we're not doing anything wrong. But the argument that because you don't find a term offensive, it means you should get to freely use that term without reprimand? No. No dice. Sorry. The offended group gets the floor.

If you can argue intelligently and concretely why you disagree about the offensiveness of a term, that's fine, but understand that you are still arguing from a place of privilege unless you are a member of the offended group. And even if you are a member of the offended group, your language choices are still open to scrutiny. Them's the breaks.

I understand that in the case of the R-Word, people (including the offending character in the criticized book) like to make the argument that it isn't actually the offended group arguing against the use of the term, but their friends, family, and advocates. Which I disagree with, obviously *points to sister in video making her own argument*. Also, I fail to see why it isn't acceptable for advocates to make the argument on the behalf of those members of the group who cannot make it for themselves for whatever reason.

There's an element of this argument I personally have never understood, and that's the insistence that one should be "allowed" to use an offensive term if they want to, and that the offended people should just shut up and deal. It's extraordinarily childish behavior in my eyes. I understand that when someone is called out, there's often a gut reaction to defend their choices and prove that they've done nothing wrong.

But here's the thing about PC terms: someone just asked you to stop being a jerk and using a term that's personally offensive to them. Why is your response to tell THEM that THEY are being stupid (more offense, goody) and that you have the right to use whatever words you like? Why do you leap immediately to defending your use of a pejorative word rather than considering the offended public's point? Why is it so important to you to cling to a piece of your vocabulary that you could easily replace with a dozen non-offensive synonymns?

Is political correctness restricting? I guess you could argue that. I guess you could argue that everyone everywhere is offended by something and that if you stopped using every word that every single person found bothersome, you couldn't say anything at all. You can argue those things. But you know what? I don't buy it. I actively consider my language and monitor my word choices, and have since I was a pre-teen. It has not limited my ability to express myself in the slightest. I'm certainly not perfect by any stretch. I make mistakes, too. And then I try to correct them.

Yes, you are allowed to use absolutely any language that you like, and no one can ever stop you from doing it. But if you make that choice, you must accept that other people are also allowed to criticize you, call you out, and consider you a jerk if you insist on using terms that bother them. That's the tradeoff. If you're okay with that, than that's the end of this discussion. If you're not okay with that, then we still have an issue.

So. Yeah. That's my piece on political correctness. I know there is a lot of discussion to be had around this topic, and I'm always happy to discuss any valid, respectful points in an equally respectful way. I'm happy to continue discussion in comments, but I reserve *my* right to ignore and delete nasty comments. And yes, I am the one who gets to decide what's nasty. It usually involves name-calling or denigrating comments about my character.

I realize I'm probably largely preaching to the choir here ;) I'd also like to clarify that in this instance, I am NOT talking about the use of slurs in fiction, other than the example I used here. I only used that example because the author herself has expressed a similar position. Here, I am talking about real people using real language in the real world.

So yes, that means bringing up Huck Finn and arguing that Mark Twain used the N-word is invalid in this particular instance. We're not talking about classic literature. We're talking about people and the language they use in real life. Discuss.

The Symbolism of a Woman's Hair

2011-12-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Snoopy vs. The Red Baron

Thank you so much for the thoughtful responses on Wednesday's post, everyone! It's always nice to know we're not alone in our weirdness and eccentricity :)

Bouncing a little bit off of the photographs of myself I chose to post with that entry, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the symbolism of a woman's hair today.

I'm not sure how aware men are of the incredible amount of weight and symbolism that goes on with women's hair -- in fact, I'm not sure many WOMEN realize it, either -- but it's something deeply engrained in our culture and society. There are certain stigmas attached to a woman's hair color, style, length, and more. It's not uncommon for a woman to change her hair style/color after going through a major life change. This is no meaningless decision. Consciously or unconsciously, there are a lot of feelings and identity issues wrapped in our locks.

We've all heard blond jokes. Golden-haired people (particularly golden-haired women) are dumb, har har har. This has a lot to do with the symbolism behind golden hair being linked with youth and beauty, which are considered foils to experience and intelligence in Western culture. Brunettes are considered more mature, elegant, and sophisticated because dark hair is linked with those traits. On the flipside, it can also imply a person is boring or plain. Redheads are considered spitfires or sexually promiscuous because the color red is intimately tied to the symbolism of sexuality, passion, and anger.

Are any of those implications accurate? No. They're really not. A woman's personality is not reflected by whatever side of the genetic coin their hair happened to fall on. I'm an intelligent blond, SO SUCK IT. Okay, maturity might still be an issue. STILL SUCK IT. My point in bringing this symbolism up is to illustrate the physical cues we often subconsciously apply not only to people we come across in real life, but our literary characters, as well. There's a reason the mean cheerleader is often a blond. The brainy nerd-girl: a brunette. The girl who always likes to pick fights and that every boy falls in love with: a redhead.

And where do these Westernized symbols of personality-linked-with-hair-color leave many women of color? Nowhere. They are roundly ignored. Or worse, "minority" hair is used to represent something altogether more stereotypical and sinister. How often do we read about dark minority hair being kinky, greasy, lank, unmanageable, unkempt? This is its own bag of offensive BS.

What about hair style? People often make snap judgements about the way a woman chooses to wear her hair. Long hair is youthful, feminine, sexy, beautiful. Short hair can be assumed to mean anything from tomboyishness to seriousness to lesbianism, depending on the style. Wearing one's hair down is carefree and sexualized. Wearing hair up is uptight, professional, or "old." Alternative styles are supposedly representative of a certain lifestyle -- dreadlocks for bohemian/hippies/druggies, mohawks for punks, cornrows for thugs, etc.

Men share some of these style snap-judgements to an extent. There are some cultural connotations, such as the Jewish tradition of not cutting hair during a mourning period. But overall, there is a LOT more stigma placed on women's hair than on men's hair. Our very femaleness itself is often tied in knots of our hair.

I raise all these points so that we can look at the way we're portraying our female characters with a critical eye. It's not an inherently bad thing to use a character's hair to help define her personality - after all, as I've been saying, a woman's hair is often culturally and socially tied to her. That said, be mindful of whether you're using a certain hair style or color to "cheat" at developing a real personality. Is your character dumb because she's blond, or dumb because she isn't interested in learning? Is she girlish because her hair's long, or girlish because that's how she chooses to portray herself?

Try to avoid using the symbolism of a girl's hair to imply something about her sexual promiscuity, intelligence, or maturity. Be mindful of your own biases. While our hair is often intimately tied to our feelings of worth, beauty, or attitude, it is not solely representative of who we are. We are not our hair. Using physicality to represent personality is incredibly overdone, anyway. People look how they look and act how they act.

Do you find yourself caught in judging a woman's personality based on how she wears her hair? If you're a woman, do you feel a connection to your hair? Have you ever experienced someone making judgements about you based on your hair?

I have. HELLO, BLOND JOKES.

Embracing the person I am.

2011-12-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Forever Yours

I know this will come as a shock to absolutely everyone, but I went through kind of an identity crisis as a teen and young adult. I KNOW. I KNOW. That never happens to anyone. It's practically impossible to imagine me without my rapier wit and easy self-confidence and complete modesty and remarkable storytelling ability.

Shut up in the back. I can hear you snickering.

Yeah. I was one of those girls who "found herself" in her early-to-mid-twenties. To be completely honest, I think there's still a part of me that's out there looking. After all, I don't think we're ever set in stone. We're malleable until the day we die. However, I feel a lot more confident and happy with the person I am today than I did when I was younger.

There are certain parts of me that have always been the same. My optimism. My desire to mediate tense situations. My eagerness to please. My laziness. My perfectionism. And always, always, always my desire for acceptance.

As a teen, that last one felt like my constant driving force. I wanted to be liked. No, I wanted to be adored. I needed to find my place. I tried popularity (hahahaha fail). I tried sports. I tried various religions. I tried theater, and honors classes, and liking certain music.

In college, it went something like: straight-edge, slacker, good girl, gamer girl, student committee participant, musician, artist, biologist, punk rocker girl-with-pink-hair, English nerd, party girl, activist, whatever-time-to-graduate.

I just wanted to find my place, but I didn't know how.

I kept chasing this mystical idea that if I just hit the right personality, all the adoration and love I was looking for would come rolling my way. I'd be one of those shiny, happy people with a million friends and a hundred things to do every weekend.

And finally I reached a point where I was just done. I was finished trying so hard to be something I wasn't. I honestly wish I could say that I just started ACTING LIKE MYSELF and then everyone loved me and I got all those great things I was looking for! But that's not true. Being myself didn't make me popular, or adored, or anything except me. But I was finally okay with that.

I'm not going to lie. There's still a piece of me that yearns to be recognized, to be loved, to be one of THOSE people. The ones everybody looks at and hangs on and wants to be. The one that joins the ranks of "cool kids." The YA online circle can feel like that sometimes, whether it's intentional or not. However, I'm at a point now where I recognize that the perception is largely just that -- a perception. Yes, some writers are bestsellers or have a million followers or are lauded with awards and movie deals and whatever else. They're also just people. People who are usually being themselves.

So I choose to embrace being the person I am. Embrace all of the parts of me, even the parts that aren't so great. Like that pesky desire to fit in. I'm always going to want that. But now I've reached a point where I won't change my personality to try and fit some imaginary mold.

This is me. I'm cool with that. Are you?

Are you cool with yourself, I mean. I assume if you're hanging out on my blog that you're okay with me. I COULD BE WRONG THOUGH. Maybe you're a closet hater who likes to lurk and seethe.

I don't think I'll ever stop being that girl trying to find her place in the world, but at least now I feel like I've got an internal compass to guide me back home.

Review: OPEN MINDS by Susan Kaye Quinn

2011-12-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Christmastime

As far as I'm concerned, Susan Kaye Quinn has done a great service to self-published YA lit. OPEN MINDS is a book that was clearly treated with care, plotted with skill, and edited with interest in producing a clean product. All self-pub and indie authors should take note: this is what a quality self-publication should look like. Hell, this is a book written with more finesse and mindfulness than I've seen from some traditionally published works.

While not without its flaws, this story is an intriguing page-turner with (generally) likeable characters and wonderfully high stakes. Kira is a sympathetic protagonist with a lot on her shoulders, and she performs admirably. Quinn is not afraid to take risks. While I openly admit that I'm not a fan of love triangles, this (sorta kinda) triangle was handled in a way that didn't make me want to pull my hair out. Though I felt that the story might have tried to pack too much into this first installment and got a little convoluted toward the end, I never felt lost or like the plot got away from the author.

I did notice at least one, maybe two, typos and a few spacing errors, but they were easily overlooked. Overall, the writing was clean and grammatically sound. I had a bit of an issue with (slight spoiler) Kira's relationship with Simon, who I felt edged a little into manipulative/abusive behavior during their courtship, but this was acknowledged and I felt was done intentionally. There was a slight flavor of insta-superpowered heroine who masters her super special skills quickly and easily. Still, in the end, I thought Kira had to face enough external hardship that I didn't feel she was let off too easy.

All in all, a great first installment and an entertaining addition to the futuristic/science-fiction section of YA. I look forward to the next installment. I'll state here that this is the first "indie" book I've read that I'm actually heartily recommending, picky reader that I am. I think Quinn has set a great precedent.

December Answers!

2011-12-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: The Mariner's Revenge Song

Time to answer some questions! Thanks to everyone who asked a question, because goodness knows I like to talk. IT'S TRUE.

When was the moment you knew your fiancee was the one?

There wasn't really a singular moment when I was struck with BAM, THIS IS THE MAN FOR ME. Our relationship has just always been comfortable and natural and right. We had kind of an explosive initial courtship (in a good way), and I found myself purely at home with him from go. I found myself changing my perception of what a relationship was because I was with him. I'd always thought I'd NEVER EVER live with a man until we were together for two years/engaged already/other arbitrary stamp of approval here. We moved in together after about six months. Mostly because he was already squatting at my apartment because we didn't like to be apart. So. Yeah. We've just always been right for each other. It's pretty awesome.

What book are you reading right now? Which upcoming books are you looking forward to reading?

I'm actually reading Susan Kaye Quinn's OPEN MINDS right now and enjoying it very much. It's a self-publishing venture, and I have to say she has done YA self-pub absolutely correctly. The writing is clean and polished (I've noticed one typo and a few spacing errors, but that's all), the pacing is mostly good, the story is gripping. All in all, she's done an excellent job and it's become the very first self-published book I've read that I'm actually recommending. I have my qualms with it, as I do with every book I read, but I think it's a solid book.

As for upcoming books, I'm pretty excited about getting my hands on CINDER, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, and MANGAMAN.

Dear Steph: how are you so awesome, and why?

I assume you've seen the film Highlander? I have a sword to show you.

(but f'real thank you!)

Will you publish under your full name or under SE Sinkhorn?

As of now, I plan on publishing under my pen name (S.E. Sinkhorn). By the time I actually have a book published, I'll be under my new married name, which I don't plan on using for my literary work. I'll stick with what I've got unless I'm advised differently by my agent/editor.

Most crush-worthy fictional character?

Gonna have to go with Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Had a HUGE crush on him when I was eleven. Not kidding.

You mentioned somewhere along the way how your work was somewhat literary and somewhat commercial fiction. Can you describe that a bit more? I was wondering if you had any book/author suggestions that would fall in a similar category?

I'll try, haha. Essentially, the commercial part comes from my high-concept hook and plot (steampunk cyborg wannabe immortals!). I have some action scenes, some cool tech, and basically a lot of the stuff you'd see in a soft science fiction show or novel. On top of that, I also write very thematically and with somewhat poetic prose (sometimes, not all the time). That's where the literary comes in. It's difficult to talk about because it's difficult to speak objectively about my own prose, but the gist is that I'm attempting an entertaining commercial story alongside a semi-lyrical style. You'll understand when you read it? LOL.

For an example of my style, you can read just about any of my short works. TTTH is written in a more classic voice, since it takes place at the turn of the century, but my style is similar. Other literary-commercial works would maybe be IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma (magic/mystery alongside lyrical prose) or most of Laini Taylor's work (fantasy novels with lush, imagery-heavy prose). Not that I'm comparing myself to EITHER of those talented authors, just giving an example of something considered literary-commercial.

What is your writing schedule like?

Chaotic, heh. I write in spurts when I have a project I'm focusing on. I'm not one of those "I write X amount every day" kind of people. If I have something to work on, I work on it for several hours a week when I can until it's done.

How have "things" changed since getting an agent (if things have changed at all)?

Well, I definitely feel like I have more responsibility to actually BE A WRITER. Before, it was a dream. Something I could work on when I felt like it, and it didn't matter if I put things off or goofed around because it was just me. I don't have any actual deadlines or contractual obligations on the line yet, but there's definitely an additional pressure to, you know, do what I need to do and take everything professionally. Not that I didn't before, but now it's pretty much a requirement.

Also, not going to lie, it is SO. NICE. to have a professional insider who really knows the inner workings of the industry and has a plan and can guide me through the waters. It has been amazing to have my agent write real revision notes on my manuscript and know that she's in there, she knows how this works, and I can trust her.

Is your book a standalone or will it be part of a series?

At the moment, it's planned as a two-book series (this book and a sequel/companion novel).

And finally, what is your favorite recipe?

Chicken, Bacon & Avocado Salad! 8-10 oz chopped chicken breast, 2-4 slices diced cooked bacon, 1 pitted and diced avocado, 1 minced shallot, 1-3 stalks chopped celery, 1 lemon. Combine all ingredients except lemon in large bowl. Zest and juice the lemon over everything. Squirt with enough mayonnaise to bind it all together and mix. Add seasonings to taste (I just use Old Bay seasoning). Serve on big buns. I like to use brioche buns.

Tasty and fast. The ingredients are all to taste, so use less/more of whatever you like. You'll get 4-6 sandwiches out of a batch, easy.

December Q&A!

2011-11-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Midnight City

I AM BACK! YAY!

Did everyone have a nice holiday? Those who celebrated, that is? I had a nice time visiting the fiance's family back east. Lots of food. So much food. Urp.

My plane was delayed today and I didn't have much time to plan an entry, soooo... Q and A?

Question and answer time! Ask me anything and I'll answer to the best of my ability. I reserve the right to ignore you if you get too personal or gross. DEAL WITH IT.

Publishing questions? Writing questions? Questions about my book? About agents? About my life in general? Cheeses I recommend for wine tasting? I'm an open book. Turn my pages.

That sounded WAY more like innuendo than I intended it to, but I'm leaving it.

My Writer's Toolkit.

2011-11-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Rock and Roll

Just an FYI: I will be taking the next week or so off for the holiday (US Thanksgiving). I'll be traveling and visiting with family. Posts will most likely resume Wednesday November 30th.

So, I thought it might be nice to share my "writer's toolkit" today. What I mean by that is basically that these are the websites, programs, books, and items that I personally use and have found helpful in my writing life. Everyone has their own "toolkit" full of the elements that are most effective for them, but hopefully you can find something useful in here.

Books:

On Writing by Stephen King
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass
Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks

Programs:

Scrivener
yWriter

(These two programs are very similar. Try both to see which you prefer. yWriter is free. Scrivener has a free trial, but you must pay for the full version.)

Items:

Notebooks. I carry a small one with me just about everywhere for quick ideas.
Note cards. Helpful for visual plotting (tack 'em to the wall).
Multi-colored pens. Good for editing.
Printer. Reading printed pages is different than editing on-screen.
Laptop or digital tablet, if you can afford one, for writing on the go.

Smartphone/Tablet Apps:

Evernote. For quick notes, brainstorming, and adding pictures to notes. So handy.
Kindle or other ebook app. All great writers read, right?
Wikipanion. Wikipedia on the go.
WriMuse. A writing prompt app to get your juices flowing.
Whack Pack. Another creative prompt/brainstorming app.
Dictionary. You need one. Find an app you like.
Translator. They're not perfect, but handy for quick 'n dirty translations.

Websites:

Publisher's Marketplace
Writer Beware
Preditors and Editors
Duotrope Digest
Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators
Absolute Write
Query Tracker
Agent Query
Ypulse
Figment Fiction
Literary Rambles
Kidlit
Nathan Bransford
TV Tropes
WriteOnCon

Those are the biggies. There are TONS of quality writing and publishing blogs out there, and I highly encourage you to explore and find the ones that speak to you most. THE INTERNET IS HUGE.

Okay. I will check you cats later. If you're celebrating this weekend, have a wonderful holiday!

Why follower counts aren't important.

2011-11-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

Comic from Inkygirl

I always feel a little awkward writing posts like this, because it's very easy to sit here and say "Follower counts are basically meaningless! Don't worry if you only have two followers! Value them! It's all good!" when I already have a reasonable (not huge, but decent) following. It feels kind of... disingenuous? I don't know. So I'm just throwing it out there that I am aware that having a teeny-tiny follower count still can make you feel kind of lonely and bummed, and being told that it doesn't matter doesn't always help.

That said, seriously, follower counts don't really matter much. Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Google+ ... the numbers are usually just that -- numbers. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that follower numbers don't have SOME effect on how you're perceived, because that's just not true. There's no arguing that a large following increases someone's appeal at first glance and makes people wonder what they're missing, so they'll often follow as well. It's called "social proof." It gives you more authority in their eyes than someone with fewer followers.

So, with that admission out of the way, I'm going to go into why writers in particular should worry less about their follower count and more about the quality of their interactions.

Focusing on the number can stress you out, depress you, and make you feel inadequate. And frankly, as a pre-published writer, cranking up your numbers isn't where your focus should be. Using social media for marketing purposes is a whole other can of worms, but it's not your concern yet. Maybe it will be someday (I hope so! I'm rooting for you!), but not yet. For now, focus on having fun and making friends. That is where you're going to get the most enjoyment, and when you're acting like yourself and making connections, the followers will come eventually. I promise.

Numbers are easy to get. Quality followers who give a crap are harder to find. I've written about building a quality Twitter following before, and that still stands. I'm going to let you all in on a secret. If you are really and truly desperate to make your number go up, it's actually pretty easy. You can either buy followers (which I do not recommend, ever), or you can go to Follower Wonk and run bio searches for anyone with "followback" or "I follow back" in their bio. Add a few. Bam. Instant numbers. The problem with that method? None of those people care about you or will interact with you or support you or buy your book. They're only interested in increasing their own counts.

Another "trick?" Participate in those blog follower-a-thons. Now, I'm not talking about the genuinely supportive ones that encourage you to actually get to know each other. I mean the ones that are more of an "add as many people as you can and then follow back everyone who adds you" madhouses. Again, this is a great way to boost your number, but not so great for attracting people who will actually, like, READ YOUR BLOG.

I'll let you in on another secret: I never do auto follow backs, I rarely add follow-whores, and I instantly block spammers/bots who follow me. Yeah, those things could pump up my numbers and make them look real nice. But you know what? I don't want a fake following. I want a real following. And I feel reasonably certain that the vast majority of my followers are following because they, you know, think I'm at least moderately interesting and/or like me and want to support me on my writing/publishing journey. AND I LOVE YOU GUYS MWAH MWAH MWAH *kissy faces*.

Here's one last secret: the best way to get followers is to be worth following. This one is HIGHLY subjective and not always fair, and I'm sure there isn't anyone out there who's thinking, "HECK YEAH, I'M TOTALLY BORING, I SHOULD SHARE MY BORINGNESS!" Everyone has a voice and a story to share, and it's really difficult when you aren't finding the audience you were hoping to find. But the process of building a quality following can be really slow going sometimes. You have to find your rhythm, and for some of us, that takes a while.

Some people really get it. They managed to figure out a niche that a lot of people connected with, they have a sense of humor that's instantly engaging, their method of delivery is fresh and unique, or they're just all around cool and everyone wants to be their friend.

Sometimes it's totally random chance. Sometimes it totally makes sense. But again, I repeat that follower count doesn't matter. What you do with the followers you have matters. I know it's hard to hear sometimes, but if you push past that feeling of social media inadequacy and learn how to enjoy yourself, you'll get there. And you'll be awesome.

Have you ever fretted about your follower count? Are you happy with your current count? What have you done to gain followers that you felt was successful?

Winners Announcement!

2011-11-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Bulletproof

Winner announcement time! Once again, thank you to everyone who stopped by to enter my contest and hang out and even follow my little blog. I honestly wish I had books for everyone, but alas, I do not. But I'm sending everyone a virtual high five.

I won't draw this out any longer. Without further ado, here are the winners of my contest, selected by random draw.

First Place: Yiling, who won the NotS/LatBND package
Second Place: Constance, who won the LEVIATHAN trilogy package
Third Place: Theresa Milstein, who won the Laini Taylor package

Much, much love to everyone, and congratulations to the winners! Those books will go out as soon as I can get my butt to the post office.

In other news, I got a haircut yesterday. I really like it. Except for one thing.

You know how when you go to get your hair done, you walk out of the salon feeling like this:

And then you go home and wash your hair and the next day you try to style it the same way and it's more like:

Yeah. Yeah. Sigh.

Check you dudes on Friday!

Is it fair to compare incomparable literature?

2011-11-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: L.G. FUAD

Thanks to everyone who entered my contest and who's been visiting over the last few weeks! It's so nice to see so many new faces around the blog. Welcome! The contest is now closed. Winners will be announced later this week, so stay tuned!

So here's a thing I think about a lot, especially given what I write: is it appropriate or reasonable to compare YA literature to adult literature? Also, is it reasonable to compare literary fiction to commercial fiction?

It's an interesting concept to consider. I write what's considered to be literary prose with a commercial plot, and I've often contended with people outside the publishing sphere who've read my work and asked me if I thought I was writing too "advanced" for teens. Funnily enough, I've never received that question from fellow YA writers or any of the agents who've read my work. So I suppose I'm saying that I sort of straddle the line between commercial and literary, stereotypical YA and stereotypical adult.

First, I think it's probably a good idea to talk about how all books aren't created equal and different books have different goals. There are books out there whose intent is to make the reader feel or think, and there are books that exist to entertain. Some attempt both. I certainly attempt both. But considering that books fit different readers and their needs, is it reasonable to compare them side by side? Is it fair to compare a bestselling commercial thriller against a bestselling literary tale of loss?

I guess that depends on your definition of fair, but it seems odd to me when I read reviews of people comparing completely incomparable works. Disparaging people for being entertained by a certain book and belittling their intelligence because they're not reading *insert appropriate literary masterwork here* instead seems counterproductive to me. And I say that as a self-confessed intellectual who loooooves many a literary masterwork.

Next, let's talk about how this relates to YA. I've lost track of the number of reviews I've read where a reviewer said something along the lines of, "The protagonist is kind of a whiny brat and the plot was loose and cobbled together, but it WAS written for teens, so what did I expect?" Which saddens me, naturally. It implies that "literature for adults" is always sensical and solid, which is COMPLETELY untrue. As with adult literature, YA contains a breadth of genres and plotlines all across the board, and not all are going to be created equal. There are going to be sloppily written diatribes alongside works of heartrending beauty. That's the way of literature.

Which links in to the way people outside the YA sphere (or even within the YA sphere) view YA. It's the overall stereotypical belief that all literature for teenagers and children is less cerebral, less emotionally deep, and less thematic than work for adults. It's certainly different, because the audience has less life experience and thus less exposure to "complex" literature, but it's not a completely separate entity.

This attitude cracks me up, because I mean, anyone who could argue that one of those detective romance pulp novels where the roguish PI sweeps the bombshell mark off her feet amidst a hail of gunfire is more cerebral and emotionally complex than The Book Thief can pretty much bite me.

But here comes the rub: is it fair to compare YA to literature written for an adult audience? A big part of me says yes, that YA can be just as stirring and brilliant as adult literature. On the other hand, it is written with an entirely different goal in mind -- to speak to the teenage experience. And the teenage experience is, by definition, a different animal than the adult experience. When writing for an age group that just doesn't have the life experience and advanced education that many adults have under their belts, is it fair to compare Looking For Alaska to The Waves? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

I'm making my own brain hurt with this post. TOO MUCH THINKING FOR A SUNDAY EVENING.

What say you, reader-pals? Is it reasonable to compare commercial to literary, or YA to non-YA? Why or why not?

Query Doctor: ELENA'S PEN by Nicole

2011-11-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

Today is the LAST DAY to enter my great big signed book contest, so be sure to do so if you haven't yet! Up for grabs: SIGNED books by Scott Westerfeld, Maureen Johnson, Stephanie Perkins, and Laini Taylor! And if you want another shot at some great books, Jessica Love, who ALSO just signed with an agent, is having an agent contest of her very own! YAY :D

And now on to Query Doctoring. It's Nicole's turn under the knife of the Query Doctor today. Be sure to tell her thanks for subjecting her query to the Doc!

If you would like to submit your query to be Doctored, please see this post.

Here's the drill: first, I'll post the query in its original, unaltered form. Then I'll give my diagnosis. Then I'll do line-by-line comments. Then I'll open it up to the commenters!

***

Dear Agent,

One day, thirteen-year-old Elena decides not to write stories during class like she normally does and instead writes that the class bully gets detention. He does a minute later. It's got to be her new pen - everything she writes with it comes true.

But then the pen writes of its own accord about a mystical fantasy land being overrun by demons. After a demon kidnaps her family and hides them in the land, Elena will do whatever she can to save them. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as writing a happy ending - whenever Elena uses the pen, someone turns into a demon, and she could be next.

ELENA’S PEN is a 66,000-word fantasy upper MG standalone novel with series potential. I believe readers of The Neverending Story and Graceling will enjoy my book.

I am the author of a fantasy romance trilogy, Kingdom of Arnhem - Woman of Honor (2009), Knight of Glory (2010), and Champion of Valor (2011) published with Desert Breeze Publishing. I have also published nine short stories for anthologies, including Mertales by Wyvern Publications, and many collections by Pill Hill Press, with four more being published before the end of the year.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Nicole Zoltack
(email address)
(phone number)

***

Healthy Bits: This query is tightly written and displays all the necessary elements - main character, her problem, her stakes, and what will happen if she fails. This is all excellent! Brevity can be really hard to come by, especially in fantasy queries, so great job there. The way you stick to a single moving plot thread without getting bogged down in subplots or extra details is very good. Your book information and bio are right on.

Under The Weather: This query isn't sick at all... it's just a little green around the gills. Nothing some fresh air can't fix. As you'll be able to see in my line-by-line, I needed more clarification in certain spots. While this query does a wonderful job of conveying the story, it did feel a little blow-by-blow to me. This happens, then this happens, then this happens. A few of the sentences felt lackluster and like they needed a little more polish -- I give examples below. Overall, I felt like it could use a bit more voice, a bit more personality. Something to really catch my attention and make me go, "Oooh! I like it! I want to read more in this voice!" It's a solid query already and the story sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I just want that one injection of oomph that's going to give it an edge.

***

Line-By-Line

One day, thirteen-year-old Elena decides not to write stories during class like she normally does and instead writes that the class bully gets detention.

This sentence is okay, but I think it could be structured differently to make it tighter and start with a stronger hook. This will depend entirely on your style, but you could try something like: "Thirteen-year-old Elena loves to write stories. It's too bad they never come true... until the day she writes about the class bully getting detention, that is." Try to avoid making the sentence too wordy. Keep it punchy and try to hook 'em in quick.

~~He does a minute later.~~ A minute later, the teacher slaps a pink slip on his desk.

This is just a suggestion to make the line a bit more powerful and inject some more personality. You can (and should) of course rewrite it in your own words/voice.

It's got to be her new pen - everything she writes with it comes true.

This part doesn't quite follow logically for me. At this point, it could be complete coincidence. A bully getting detention isn't really a WOAH THAT'S TOO WEIRD TO HAPPEN BY ITSELF moment. I'd give a more extreme example ("She writes about her teacher's hair turning green!" or something) where it would be VERY obvious that yes, she is the cause of this. Make sure there's a crystal-clear reason why she knows she (or rather, her pen) is causing things to happen. Or give a second example beyond the bully.

But then the pen writes ~~of its own accord~~ about a mystical fantasy land being overrun by demons all by itself.

Hmm maybe rework this or break it up. It feels a little static/passive as written. Example: "But then the pen writes all by itself, and the story it tells isn't pretty. The words form a tale about a mystical land overrun by demons." Again, this is a place where you can insert yourself and your writing personality a little more. Play with it.

After a demon kidnaps her family and hides them in the land, Elena will do whatever she can to save them. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as writing a happy ending - whenever Elena uses the pen, someone turns into a demon, and she could be next.

Strong ending! I really like this! This was the first place where I felt like you got a little bit of personality in there (with the "not as simple as writing a happy ending" bit). My only suggestion here is to maybe give us a tiny clarification that the mystical land is obviously real, since her family gets kidnapped there. Right now, it's kind of like, "The pen starts writing about a fantasy land! And then demons kidnap her family!" Which is slightly disorienting. Just give the reader a teensy bit more grounding.

ELENA’S PEN is a 66,000-word ~~fantasy~~ upper MG fantasy ~~standalone~~ novel with series potential. I believe readers of THE NEVERENDING STORY and GRACELING will enjoy my book.

Be more authoritative. Cut the "I believe." Trust yourself and your story! You don't have to refer to it as a standalone. Just be careful not to accidentally imply that it NEEDS to have sequels to be a complete story. "Series potential" is fine. Capitalize your comparable titles. I'm a little wary of THE NEVERENDING STORY. It's a classic and not super relevant to today's market, but I think it's okay to use if it really fits. Also be careful comparing to GRACELING, which is YA and not MG. Just think about it and make sure it's what you want to say.

I am the author of a fantasy romance trilogy, Kingdom of Arnhem - Woman of Honor (2009), Knight of Glory (2010), and Champion of Valor (2011) published with Desert Breeze Publishing. I have also published nine short stories for anthologies, including Mertales by Wyvern Publications, and many collections by Pill Hill Press, with four more being published before the end of the year.

Good use of publishing credits, although it might not be relevant to children's literature, so keep that in mind. Agents might ask for sales numbers for these, so be prepared to give them out just in case. You don't have to include them in the query. Also, I don't know anything about these publishers, but I assume you've ensured that they're legitimate independent publishers that agents will be able to check up on.

***

Aaaaand you're out of surgery! Once again, thank you so much to Nicole for letting her query be dissected for the other students. You've got a good thing going here. Keep pushing, and good luck!

(Oh man, that sounded kind of like a childbirth analogy. NOT WHAT I MEANT.)

Turning it over to the commenters. Share your thoughts if you have 'em!

On writerly confidence.

2011-11-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: Under The Hedge

Don't forget: only a few days left to enter my awesome contest full of signed books and critiques!

First: can we talk about how much I love The Sing Off this season? Because I do. I really, really do. LOVE PENTATONIX THEY ARE SO GOOD I CAN'T EVEN TAKE IT. Ahem. Yeah.

Next: let's talk about confidence and never feeling like we're good enough. BECAUSE THAT'S FUN.

My blog-buddy and agent-sister (I can't believe I get to say that eeeeee) Phoebe North recently wrote a blog post that really spoke to me. It was about her experience at Visible Paradise (a SF/F writer's workshop) and how it really affected the way she viewed herself as a writer. She talked about how the writers she was working beside -- a pool of incredibly talented, creative people -- all had difficulty taking compliments when it came to their work, even when that praise was well-earned.

You should really read her post, but this is what it boils down to: that workshop helped her learn that it's okay to think of herself as a professional writer. A talented professional writer (which she absolutely is). It gave her permission to take pride in her work.

And I'll start with the comment I posted on that entry:

"... I can 100% relate. I think, as writers, there's a sort of unwritten rule that we're SUPPOSED to feel some level of inadequacy or self-loathing. That anyone who doesn't is a big-headed hack who thinks they're better than everyone. Which is not at all fair. We CAN take pride in our work and feel secure in our writer status without being unrealistic about our capabilities or our willingness to continue learning.

It's hard when we hear the same thing over and over: 'Listen to the criticism, ignore the praise. Ignore the praise. Ignore the praise. Ignore it because you can't learn from it.' And while on some level it IS true that we learn more through criticism, that doesn't mean that the praise is always unfounded. Sometimes we deserve it. No, we DO deserve it. Because we work hard and we study hard and we write well. And that's okay."

This is something I struggle with a lot, and I know I'm not alone. There's this weird pressure on writers (and other artists) where we're not supposed to appreciate or take pride in our own work. Doing so makes us, like, JERKS or something. I feel like I'm constantly wavering between not quite believing that people think I'm actually publishable and reading my stuff from months past and going, "Woah, wait, *I* wrote that? But it's good!"

It's like no matter what sort of validation there is out there to get, it never makes me quite believe in my own merit. Talking about my writing achievements makes me feel boastful and I constantly fret about how to let people know that I'm a REAL WRITER who writes THINGS THAT ARE PRETTY GOOD without sounding full of myself.

But after reading Phoebe's post, and after my experiences from the last few weeks, I'm finally approaching a place where it's okay to not be full of self-loathing and constantly hating my words. To admit that hey, I'm not bad. I'm better than not bad. I'm good. I'm talented. I'm a writer. An author.

There's a line between pride and arrogance. Arrogance is misguided confidence in the face of repeated criticism in the same area. Arrogance is saying, "No, critique group and agents and editors, you are WRONG when you say I need to work on my writing, despite the fact that you're all pointing out the same weaknesses."

Pride is admitting to yourself that sometimes you write gold. That when talented writer friends, critique partners, and publishing professionals are all telling you that you don't suck, maybe you actually don't suck. It's giving yourself your own stamp of approval, which is often the hardest stamp to get.

So I'm standing here and baring myself to you. Telling you that despite hearing over and over again that I'm a good writer, despite being told my work moved someone to tears, despite having a short story selected in a contest by an author I fiercely admire, and despite jumping the frightening hurdle that is obtaining the coveted offer of representation... despite all of that, doubt still eats away at me.But its bite is getting less and less powerful.

And I'm standing here to tell you that it's okay to face your own monster and tell it, "Yes, I am good. I am going to do this. I am talented."

"I am a writer."

On stealing ideas.

2011-11-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

Today's Tune: The Winter

CONTEST CONTEST CONTEST! ENTER ENTER ENTER! OPEN TILL 11-11-11!

When I talk to people who don't know very much about the publishing industry (writers or non-writers), there's a question I get asked over and over again: "How can you talk about your book idea/premise so casually? How can you send out queries to these 'agents' and 'editors?' How do you know they're not just going to steal your idea and write it themselves or give it to one of their other authors to write instead? WHAT IF THEY STEAL YOUR MANUSCRIPT????"

This can be a difficult question to answer, even though my default answer is pretty simple: "No one can steal an idea, and no legitimate publishing professional worth their salt would ever compromise their career and reputation by committing plagiarism."

That answer doesn't seem good enough for many people, however. So I have several sub-answers that better explain why being worried about having one's idea or unpublished work stolen is (mostly) an unfounded concern.

1.) You can't steal an idea. Ideas are insubstantial things that really don't have value by themselves. Everyone has ideas. I have a million ideas. You probably have a million ideas. But none of that matters unless you have the chops and the willingness to create something from that idea.

2.) Your idea probably isn't as original as you think it is. Sorry. LOTS of people come up with similar ideas for a novel premise. How many people do you think have an idea for a novel about a war between werewolves and vampires? About a spunky detective and his/her loyal sidekick? Steampunk pirates with automatons and eye patches? This is actually why a lot of publishers or literary agencies have a clause that says you can't sue them if you send them a query/pages and then another one of their authors releases a book with a similar premise (SIMILAR PREMISE, not "exact copy of your words"). Because other people already have your idea. And they think it's their idea. They're just the one who executed it in their own style. It's not plagiarism. It's shared creative consciousness. And if your idea really IS that unique and original? It's unlikely another person would be able to do it justice.

I mean, here, this is the premise of TICK-TOCK: A 16-year-old society girl from Edwardian-era Chicago discovers her father was murdered by a secret society seeking immortality via cybernetic upgrades, and she sets out to stop them at any cost. Reasonably unique premise. Sounds interesting. Could be cool. But do you have ANY IDEA AT ALL how I've executed it? Probably not. Because I won't show you the pages. NEENER NEENER. But this is my point. Yeah, I have a fairly original (but not totally original!) idea. Theoretically someone could "steal" it and write their own book. But it would be absolutely nothing like mine. They don't know about my characters, my subplots, my themes, my style choices, blah blah blah.

3.) Agents and editors aren't writers. That's why they're agents and editors. I mean, setting aside those agents/editors who are also authors. But usually, agents and editors don't actually want to write. They have the best time doing their job -- which is managing the careers of authors or editing authors' books. They're not looking to steal ideas to write on their own. That's not what they do. And for those who ARE authors, I assure you they have plenty of their own ideas. They don't need yours. Promise.

4.) They're also not going to hand off your ideas to their own authors. First, as I mentioned above, authors already have their own ideas. It's true that sometimes publishers suggest an author go in a certain direction, ("Your vampire monkey book did really well. What if you wrote something similar, but with spider-pigs instead?" or "Readers are really enjoying your historical. More historical, please."), but they don't ever "steal" an unpublished manuscript, send it to that author, and go, "Here. Write this, but better." The purpose of signing an author is that they already like that authors work, style, and novel ideas. Giving the authors something that isn't theirs to write probably isn't going to give them a good result.

5.) Plagiarism is publishing career suicide. There's probably no greater crime in the creative writing world than taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. First, IT'S ILLEGAL to profit off of work that isn't yours and you can get the pants sued off of you. Next, no one in the industry will work with someone who has been found guilty of plagiarism. But let me clarify again: plagiarism is the direct copying of another writer's work and/or significant, identifiable elements of their work without proper credit. Ideas CAN NOT be plagiarized.

6.) It's highly unlikely for unpublished work to be plagiarized. Unpublished work is unpublished for a reason. Whether that reason is that it's just not right for the market, it's not polished enough, it's too niche, it's too ambiguous, or it's just not ready, there's a reason it wasn't picked up. (I'm purposely avoiding self-publishing for the moment, as that's an entirely different discussion). It isn't the best use of a publisher's talent pool and time to go through the slush and pick out ideas that maybe-sorta-might be good if they were written a little differently. It's a much better use to dip in to the ready-and-waiting pool of available talent and already-salable books they have at their disposal.

So, this is why I've never been afraid of having my ideas or work stolen. I didn't send to shady/unscrupulous agents or publishers, I knew from the start that my idea was hardly the part that mattered, and I knew it just wasn't a logical thing for agents/publishers to do. It is totally okay to be protective of your work. I completely understand that. But there's a difference between protective and paranoid. Make sure you know that difference.

In which I share my query & talk a lot.

2011-11-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: The Ocean (Is Bleeding Salt)

*dangles shiny contest in front of your face* ENTER ENTER ENTER! SIGNED BOOKS! CRITIQUES! SWEETNESS!

So, a few people have asked a couple of things lately.

Am I still doing Query Doctor? Yes. For now. If you have a query you'd like to go under the knife, feel free to submit.

Also: can I share MY query? Sure. I'm all for it if people think it will help them learn. You can find it under my QueryTracker Success Story, but I'll post it here as well.

Without further ado, here is my query for TICK-TOCK. This is my "base query," or the general template I used for all the query letters I sent. I generally added 2-3 sentences of personalization for almost every agent I sent to, plus any other personalization as needed.

Dear [Agent Name],

[2-3 sentences of personalization detailing why I selected this particular agent to query]

In Edwardian-era Chicago, young socialites like 16-year-old Clara Dietrich are expected to attend women’s college and study the arts until they find a suitable husband. They do not study anatomy, they do not watch ragtime shows in gambling houses, and they most certainly do not light would-be immortals on fire.

Nevertheless, Clara has no choice but to involve herself in these very indecencies when her father is found murdered and quite literally heartless on the shore of Lake Michigan.

When she receives a letter at her father’s funeral, the clues contained within lead to an unfathomable discovery. The killers are a centuries-old society determined to achieve immortality, and they’ve finally found a way: cybernetic enhancement. They’ve been abducting and enslaving the world’s leading scientists by fitting them with Tick-Tocks – synthetic hearts that must receive regular maintenance to function. Now they’ve targeted Clara, with her inherited intellect and proclivity for biology.

With the help of her father’s trusted friends, and a few of her own, Clara must stop the maniacal order before they destroy any more lives. But in order to end it all, she might have to give up her own beating heart.

THE TICK-TOCK HEARTS is a YA steampunk novel, complete at 73,000 words. The quick-witted heroine and fantastical elements will appeal to readers of Libba Bray's GEMMA DOYLE TRILOGY. I am an active member of SCBWI and have a B.A. in English with a Creative Writing emphasis. My short story, "Chasing Shadows," was the YA runner-up for the 2010 Katherine Paterson Prize for YA and Children's Writing, published in the Winter 2011 issue of Hunger Mountain online. This is a simultaneous submission.

[More personalization detailing what I sent with my letter, if applicable. For example: "Per your submission guidelines, I've included a sample chapter with this email."] Thank you for your time and consideration.

- Stephanie Sinkhorn

[phone number]

[email address]

That's it. That's what I sent to everyone, every single time. I didn't rearrange my paragraphs, I didn't include my physical address with emails (though I did include it on the actual manuscript), I signed with my full name (not my pen name), and I didn't do a ton of additional tweaking. This is pretty much what everyone I queried saw.

Because I know people are often interested in stats for these sorts of things, here are mine. I queried a total of 30 agents. Of those 30 queries, I received 10 outright rejections (some form, some not) and 3 non-responses. The rest of the agents (17 total) requested pages. Out of those 17 requests, I received 13 rejections and four offers of representation. All-in-all, I had just over a 50% positive response rate with this query.

I always included 10 sample pages (my first chapter) with my query unless the agent's guidelines specifically said not to or to include more/less. As such, I don't know how many responses were directly due to my query, directly due to my sample pages, or a combination of both. But I'd probably lean toward a combination of both (because your sample pages always have to live up to your query!). I also couldn't begin to tell you what exactly it was about my submission that piqued or didn't pique each agent's interest. SUBJECTIVITY IS FUN AMIRITE.

This was my tactic for creating this query: I really focused on highlighting three things -- the setting (Edwardian-era Chicago), the personality of my protagonist (hinted at in the query), and the most interesting/unique plot thread in my book (synthetic hearts). I also tried to incorporate enough voice to give the agent a sense of what they were going to get when they looked at pages. These were the things I felt would most make me stand out in the crowd. Then I made sure to include Clara's motivation, her goal, and the BIGGEST STAKE she would face.

I can tell you right now that I have a bazillion subplots and other characters in TICK-TOCK that did not make the query, much as I wanted them to. It was a juggling act, for sure. I had to decide what was important and what wasn't, what best showcased my writing, and what would make an agent want to read on. It was rough.

But in the end, I'm really pretty proud of it. My little query did its job, and did it well. I couldn't have dreamed of a better success rate (well, okay, 100% would have been awesome, but we all know that's not realistic or whatever). Also, I can now tell you a few of the biggest things I learned while querying.

1.) As long as it isn't a hot mess, the format of your query DOES NOT MATTER. Read Mary Kole; she speaks the truth. I don't think the way I arranged the elements of my query had any effect whatsoever on my response rate. Everything that needed to be there was there, and the agents who liked what they saw requested pages. That's it. I promise, NO ONE is going to reject you because you made one tiny error or you didn't arrange the letter in the exact perfect way. The content is what matters.

2.) It doesn't matter how awesome your book is -- everyone, everyone, EVERYONE gets rejected. Some agents just flat-out aren't going to pick up what you're putting down. Some are going to like bits and pieces, but not be on board with other elements. And it's going to hurt. But that's okay. Again, HAPPENS TO EVERYONE.

3.) At the end of the day, the query is only a teeny-tiny slice of the cake. Yes, it needs to be concise and interesting and showcase your writing skills. But most of them will read your pages anyway, and the PAGES are what matter most. Not the query. Don't spend so much time constructing the perfect query that you forget that it's not what gets you the offer. The book is what gets you the offer.

Blah, blah, blah, STOP LECTURING US, STEPH. Heh. You guys know I mean well. I hope this entry is helpful!

Have an awesome weekend, dudes. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS, DON'T FORGET.

NaNo and Sprinting vs. Marathon Running

2011-11-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Bonnie Taylor Shakedown

First! You guys know I'm running a contest for the next two weeks, right? A big one? With signed books and manuscript critiques? You should enter.

Next! I contributed a guest blog post for TL Conway's great big NaNoWriMo blog party. You can view my entry here, and there are lots of other great entries from great bloggers around the 'net about NaNo thoughts, strategies, and more.

Speaking of NaNo, I had a few more thoughts I wanted to add on top of my guest post. So here are those thoughts, and then you can hop on over to TL's and read many more great posts :)

I mention in my guest post that I'm a big fan of NaNoWriMo because it gets people to actually sit down and write. And I stand by that. However, I think it's important to keep a realistic head on one's shoulders and understand what NaNo is truly about: proving to yourself that yes, you can be a writer. You can write a novel-length work. You can write every day. You can create something from scratch. And all of those things are very important and inspire a lot of people.

However, NaNo is not a key to success. It's not the magic pill that will make you an accomplished novelist, or create an immediately publishable manuscript, or even train you on how to incorporate a realistic writing schedule into your life. NaNo is a fun, competitive bonding experience for people who want to be writers. But let's face it: 1,667+ words a day isn't a realistic writing schedule for most of us, especially for those of us with other jobs or family obligations. It's fun for a month, but it's not something most people can stick with on a regular basis.

Sometimes it's easy to fall into the NaNo trap... dictating our worth and dedication as writers based on how quickly we can churn out pages and how high our wordcounts get. It can lead to being more concerned with numbers and appearances than the quality of what's actually going down on the page. It can lead to burnout and shame when we don't meet our lofty wordcount goals, which leads to writer depression/anxiety and eventually giving up altogether because you can't "keep up."

This is why a dear friend of mine -- Johnny Dale, author of the YA serial The Darling Budds -- created a site dedicated to writers who want to try a different tactic. The site's called It's Not A Sprint, It's A Marathon, and it's dedicated to helping support writers in finding a healthy and realistic daily writing goal that works for them. It's not about carrying the competitive and overzealous spirit of NaNoWriMo throughout the rest of your writing life, it's about finding that pattern of regular writing that's right for you.

So, this month, if you decided to do NaNo and you find yourself falling behind for whatever reason, don't worry. Not everyone can swing 2000 words a day. And that is okay. It doesn't mean you're a failure, or a poor writer. You just need to find the path that works for you.

I'm wishing the very best of luck not only to November's NaNoWriMo participants, but to all writers out there who are trying to find the place where they fit in. I'm here to reinforce that it's okay to let go of the wacky wordcount goals and constant Twitter updates about your status. You can do this. You just need to find the right path :)

Write on!

The "Maybe Genius Has An Agent" Contest

2011-10-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Hollow and Bold

CONTEST CLOSED! Thank you to everyone who entered!

Happy Halloween! Let's celebrate, hm? I promised a huge contest last week, and a huge contest you're going to get. Are you guys ready for this?

First, because everyone always wants to know about the prizes, here are the available prizes. I got super lucky last month and had a bunch of really cool authors come through my local bookstore, so I'm sharing the wealth.

The complete LEVIATHAN trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, all signed by Mr. Westerfeld himself! (Includes paperback copy of LEVIATHAN, paperback copy of BEHEMOTH, and hardcover copy of GOLIATH. All books are signed by Scott Westerfeld. GOLIATH is signed and dated.)

Signed copies of THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson and LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR by Stephanie Perkins! (This prize pack includes both hardcover books, signed by their respective authors).

Signed copies of LIPS TOUCH and DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor! (Includes paperback copy of LIPS TOUCH and hardcover copy of DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, both signed by Laini Taylor).

AWESOME PRIZES, amirite? But that's not all! Here are the first-second-third prize rankings:

FIRST PRIZE: Your choice of one of the three signed book prize packs PLUS a 25-page* manuscript critique from yours truly! I will gladly critique any fiction genre, but my specialties are kidlit, YA, contemporary and speculative.

SECOND PRIZE: Your choice of the two remaining book prize packs PLUS a 10-page* critique from yours truly.

THIRD PRIZE: The remaining signed book prize pack and a critique of either your query or your first page* from... yours truly :)

* Stipulation: I consider a "page" to be a double-spaced page in a standard 12pt font size.

AND NOW THE RULES.

First, second, and third place will be determined by random draw. To enter, you must comment on this blog post. Anyone is welcome to enter, but you must give me a way to contact you! So if you're commenting "anonymously," please include your email address. Contest open to US and Canada only this time (sorry... someday I'll do an international contest again!). Contest closes November 11th.

Here is what you must do to enter:

1.) Comment on this post.
2.) Spread the word by mentioning this contest on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and tell me where you did so.

That's it. You DO NOT have to follow my blog/Twitter/Facebook/whatever to enter. Of course I would love it if you did, but I'm not going to lie, I want you to follow me because you think I'm neat and you're interested in what I have to say, not because you have to in order to play. I *do* want you to spread the word about the contest, though. You don't get any extra points or entries for mentioning it on multiple sites, so it's up to you where and how often you want to mention it.

And that's the deal! I'm excited to share some really fabulous books by equally fabulous authors with you. Remember to spread the word and that the contest closes November 11th!

The reality behind the dream.

2011-10-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Badfish/Boss DJ (cover)

Wednesday was pretty crazy, eh? Yeah. My head's still reeling, too.

As a follow up after that INSANITY, I wanted to break down my experience a little bit and shine some light on the journey that led up to that moment. And it was definitely a journey.

I imagine when reading my agent story, or reading ANYONE'S agent story, it can seem kind of like a dream. And hey, I CAN RELATE. I'm still mired in the "I can't believe it happened to me and not someone else" stage myself. But particularly where my story is concerned, it might seem like a crazy amount of good fortune. Which it is. I mean, partial request first thing at WriteOnCon? Querying for only two months? Four offers? I know as well as anyone that my story is not really the norm.

There was this really weird moment for me when all of this started going down where I wondered how I'd tell the story. It felt like magic, and because of that magic, I had two thoughts: 1) the sparkly "agent story" isn't going to be the entire reality, and 2) how am I going to tell it without coming off as braggy? In the end, I decided to tell it the way that made the most sense -- conveying my shock and excitement as best I could.

But there's more to the story, of course. It's not like I rolled out of bed three months ago, spat out a book, and started querying it. No. I know my querying success is attainable by others, especially since it isn't nearly the most remarkable story out there. (You want remarkable? Read Gennifer Albin's story. Holy crap.). How do I know other people can do this? Because I'm convinced my success came partly from luck, but mostly from the work I did prior to ever sending my first query. And work? Anyone can do that.

I may have only queried for two months, but THE TICK-TOCK HEARTS has been a labor of love two years in the making. I had the first spark of the idea in August 2009 and wrote the first crappy shotgun draft during NaNoWriMo that year. I spent a lot of 2010 poking at it to see if I could make it better. I rewrote the first three chapters and polished them to send to an SCBWI conference for critique. The agent who reviewed the pages had some lovely things to say, but also some pointers about where it needed work. Her final note said, "This is a great start! Stick with it!"

So I stuck with it. Based on the agent's critique, my manuscript got a complete overhaul. And I mean complete. I basically only kept the skeleton of my plot intact. I changed the POV from third person to first, I cut and combined several characters, I moved a boring tertiary character into a prominent role and gave them a real personality, I added scenes, I cut scenes, blah blah blah.

And then the research started. I feel like I read every industry blog and learned every professional technique and knew the preferences of every agent in the world by the time I was done. I had a list of about 60 agents who I felt were reasonably good to very good matches for my manuscript.

What's my point, you might ask. My point is that even though it seems like I spent a ridiculously short amount of time querying, it's important to keep in mind that I spent a looooooot longer working on the front end. I wrote a book. I rewrote the book. I edited. I edited. I edited. I polished and polished. I had people read it. I edited it some more. I did my research. I worked and worked until I had a project I felt proud of and confident in, even if I was still scared the professionals might disagree. I taught myself how to write a strong query. I targeted the agents I queried carefully and for specific reasons, which I'm sure increased my response rate exponentially.

And that, I am absolutely positive, is the bulk of why my success seemed so "easy." I put in the work and I had a little bit of good luck with timing. That's all. You can do that, too. You just have to be the person who's willing to tear the thing you love to pieces and lovingly restructure it over, and over, and over again. And even then, some folks won't think it's quite ready or quite right. But I bet someone will.

If you're going through this right now, please keep your chin up. This is a hard road, but I feel reasonably confident that anyone who works hard to constantly improve their craft and strengthen their stories will eventually find success in one form or another.

High fives all around, guys. You're awesome.

I am agented.

2011-10-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Halo/Walking On Sunshine

So, this was a thing that happened.

In August, I attended WriteOnCon. I was putting the finishing polishes on my manuscript at the time and I figured I could get some feedback from the forums on my query. I was planning on starting the process in September.

But then I posted my query, and the VERY FIRST RESPONSE was from a Ninja Agent, telling me my query was very good and just needed a teensy bit of polish. And then she requested a partial from me.

And this was me.

Unexpected to say the least. I had a "holy crap, agents might actually want to see this thing" moment. So, like a complete n00b, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW BETTER, I let my excitement get the better of me and I sent her my first 50 pages without giving them a final scrub. She ultimately passed on seeing more (OF COURSE), but she had enough positive things to say that I was encouraged. I'd been dilly-dallying around the querying thing, procrastinating because I was terrified that everyone would hate it and think I was a secret hack and I'd get a million rejections. But that agent's kind words, even in the form of a rejection, were enough to kick my butt into high gear.

So I polished. And corresponded with my betas and critique partners. And polished a little more. And then I took a deep breath and sent out "real" queries.

And then I started getting multiple requests for partials and fulls.

And this was me again.

I got my first few rejections. They stung, just like I thought they would, but every agent I queried was kind and encouraging. I got more full requests. More rejections. More full requests. More rejections.

And then, when I was feeling particularly down one day after two full rejections, I got an email asking for a phone call.

I tried to stay calm. It totally didn't mean anything. I mean, agents call to reject you over the phone all the time, don't they? (NO THEY DON'T). I convinced myself she was probably going to ask for a revise and resubmit. But no. She offered me representation.

But then. BUT THEN. I still had manuscripts out with other agents. So then I got to do the thing where I emailed all the other agents to say, "HEY GUESS WHAT, SOMEONE WANTS THIS THING." And I figured okay, they'd all get back to me and say, "Awesome, good for you. I'm going to pass." And many of them did do that (much more nicely).

Except for another one who wanted a call. And another. And another.

I ended up with four offers of representation. A luxury I'd only heard of in legends and never really thought I'd have for myself.

And that is how, after much angsting and fretting and weighing of options, I accepted an offer of representation from Michelle Andelman of Regal Literary two months after I began officially querying.

I. AM. AGENTED.

Why yes, I may have been planning this entry for a long, long time. Why do you ask?

But seriously. I am so, so thrilled to be taking the next step in my journey toward (hopefully) publication. I have an amazing partner in Michelle, and I am SO VERY MUCH looking forward to working with her.

And I have to thank you, readers and writer pals. Thank you for reading this bunch of rambling nonsense. Thank you for reading ALL of my rambling nonsense. Thank you for your support, encouragement, and general awesomeness. I genuinely don't think I would have made it here without the writing community, and for that I thank you.

I'll wrap it up now, but you can expect several more entries on my thoughts about the querying process and other bits of knowledge I picked up while I was actually in the trenches. I hope they're helpful to you! ALSO: THERE WILL BE A CONTEST. WITH PRIZES. YES.

~~THE END~~
THE BEGINNING

Write What You NaNo Party

2011-10-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

I don't have a scheduled entry for today (oooobviously), but I wanted to send you all over to a great blog party at TL Conway's blog centered around NaNoWriMo! If you're participating in NaNo next month, you should check it out. Lots of great entries and advice are scheduled!

Links you may have missed.

2011-10-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: I Know

Happy Friday! Another week has come and gone. And stuff.

It's a little late and I'm a little burned out, so let's go with a few links, shall we?

In case you missed it:

You should definitely read the Vanity Fair article where Lauren Myracle discusses the National Book Award fiasco and is a total class act.

You should also check out The Rejectionist's YA Op-Ed Mad Lib, for your convenience when writing editorials about how awful/dark/tragic/trashy/etc. today's fiction for youth is and how teens should be in the Girl Scouts of America selling cookies or something. Because it's wholesome and not HORRIBLE AND DAMAGING. Snerk.

The release date for YA darling Tahereh Mafi's debut novel is drawing ever closer. All signs point to this one being a VERY BIG DEAL.

Lastly, check out AARdvark's thoughts on the Amazon vs. Big Publishing headbutting match. Really, New York Times??

Have an awesome weekend, dudes. And stay tuned for next week. I may or may not have an announcement to make. We shall see. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN.

Critique Tip: Don't Rewrite

2011-10-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Say Hey (I Love You)

I know there's a third Campaigner Challenge going around, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to swing it this time. I'm suddenly very swamped with... things. Things I can't talk about yet because I am ~~a horrible tease~~ the consummate professional. BUT I WILL SOON. Soon. Soon.

So for now, let's talk about a critique tip. Not for receiving them, but for giving them.

*** Upfront disclaimer, just in case: this post is not directed at anyone who has ever critiqued my work! You are all fabulous and awesome and I love you.

/disclaimer

There are many very important things to remember when critiquing someone else's work. Be honest, but courteous. Don't slam them or snark them (although occasional smartass remarks are okay if you both have a sarcastic sense of humor and it's welcome. I DON'T KNOW ANYONE WHO CRITIQUES LIKE THAT, DO YOU. COUGH COUGH.). Be timely. Ask them ahead of time how thorough they want you to get and/or if they have specific questions they'd like you to keep in mind.

And then there's one thing to remember that's at the top of the list: always remember that you are not the author. You're helping the author find holes in their work to patch up. You're not telling them how you would write their story.

This can be a difficult thing for some critiquers to master. It's easy to forget that sometimes other authors make intentional voice and narrative choices that you might not make. When critiquing, sometimes we want to change the prose or plot elements around to match what we ourselves would do. And that doesn't work.

Always, always, always remember that the work you are critiquing is not your story. It's not written in your voice, and the author's choices are not your own. As best as you can, try to slip into the author's mindset and try to understand where they're coming from.

This is one of the many reasons why it's important to match up with critique partners who jive well with what you happen to write. Sometimes you just aren't going to connect with someone's work. This is, after all, an incredibly subjective business. If you find that you aren't connecting and you're feeling the itch to change page after page to something YOU'D write, then you probably aren't the right partner for that author.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't point out when you feel confused or when something isn't working for you. That is what you're supposed to do. But keep your comments directed to the structure of the story, the pacing of the plot, dialogue that doesn't feel realistic, weak characterization, technical errors, etc. Things that are structurally keeping the story from being its best.

Do not try to change someone's style to match more closely to your own. And MOST OF ALL, please never, ever, EVER rewrite someone else's work. That's just rude.

To clarify, suggestions like this are cool: "This sentence reads awkwardly to me. You might try cutting some of the extra wordiness or reworking so the subject and verb agree better."

It's cool because you're critiquing the STRUCTURE of the sentence. You're not trying to rewrite it in your own voice.

Suggestions like this are where you start stepping on toes: "I'm not really feeling the line, 'She had drops of Jupiter in her hair.' It's too flowery and the metaphor seems weird. I'd say something like, 'The starlight shone on her hair and turned it silver' instead. It's more concrete."

Can you see how that example might not be very useful to the author? And, in fact, might upset them quite a bit?

Give your thoughts, but don't rewrite. It's okay to say a metaphor isn't working for you. It's okay to suggest changes you might like to see and let the author run with them. It's not okay to "show them a better way."

I hope that all makes sense. I'm a bit loopy for lack of solid sleep these last few nights. But anyway. What sort of critique tips do YOU have to share?

Increasing your blog's appeal

2011-10-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Troublemaker

For those who don't know, my "day job" is web content editing and internet marketing. I do a lot of work with social media, websites, and blogs. After doing so for the last few years, I've learned a lot about what draws users to blogs in particular.

It's difficult to gain and keep blog followers. It's much easier to attract followers for short media (Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook) because reading a short blurb is less of a commitment than an entire blog post. However, there are a number of ways to increase your blog's appeal and get people to come back for more.

First, the superficial fixes that make your blog look good and welcoming.

Make sure your blog is readable. Avoid busy backgrounds, text that is too bright or too light, text decorations, or funky fonts. They may seem quirky and fun, but they make your blog really difficult to read, and if people can't read, they won't bother following or coming back. Why would they?

Leave out all the extra bells and whistles. Appealing blogs have structure and look clean. Have you ever come across a blog that has 800 different widgets and awards and GIFs and doohickies in the sidebar? Don't do that. It's messy and distracts your readers from the important thing: your content. I know it's a lot of fun to post all the various cute blog awards you've won and widgets for all the groups you've joined over the years, but seriously, don't. It should be easy for visitors to find certain things in your sidebar, like your follow button, Twitter link, or contact info. Reserve the sidebar for the important stuff. If you absolutely must have those extras, put them beneath the important info.

Get rid of the automatic music player. We all love music. Believe me, I know. But not everyone likes YOUR music. There are few things more annoying than surfing to some blog on your lunch break at work and getting blasted with Ke$ha. Viewers will not approve. This is why I always post my "song of the day" as a link. If people would like to go listen, they can click and check it out. It's okay to have a music player on your blog if you really want it, but make sure you turn the auto-play off.

Simplify. Tying in to the "bells and whistles" point, it's best to keep your blog design simple and to the point. It should reflect your personality and your audience, but it should look clean and streamlined. Keep sidebar blurbs short. Make your links and contact information easy to find. Optimize images for the web so they don't take forever to load. Select an easy-to-read font in an easy-to-read color. Make sure things don't look too small or big or cramped or weird.

Now on to the other stuff.

Create consistent, interesting content. First, you need to find your niche. What is your blog about? Your writing journey? Book reviews? Advice? Humor? Make sure you know, and make sure your readers know. Readers come back when they have an idea of what they're going to get. Watch for which of your blog posts get the most hits and try to figure out why people are so interested in that topic.

Keep length consistent, as well. Most people don't want to read a giant wall of text. They want to spend a few minutes on your blog and then move on. Usually it's best to keep blog posts to 250-600 words. However, if you establish early and often that you tend to write a little longer, people will be aware of that. Just remain consistent.

Be sociable. I know I'm terrible at this when I get busy, but it's really important. Respond to people. Let them know you're listening and glad that they're reading. Visit their blogs when you can. Be a friend.

Keep a schedule. Whether that schedule is once a week, once a month, or every single day, make sure you keep up with it as best you can. People like knowing when to come back for more content. If you make them wait too long, they'll lost interest.

Share and link. If you have a blogger friend that you really like, link other people to their blog with a short explanation as to why you enjoy them. Ask people if they'd like to do guest spots. Link to articles, videos, and other content that you feel is relevant to your audience. Don't just talk about yourself all the time. Unless you are a super interesting person, it gets old pretty fast.

Have fun. It's really obvious when you come across a blogger who's blogging because they feel like they should, rather than actually enjoying it. If it's not fun for you, seriously, don't do it. There are better ways to spend your time. Blogging isn't for everyone, and that's okay.

City One by Alan Frackelton

2011-10-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: White Knuckles

In the spirit of spreading the word about my fellow YA authors who are immensely talented by sadly underrated, I will direct you to the following short story by Alan Frackelton.

City One

Here's an excerpt:

“… But Cassie and Jo and Quiet One would not know until they woke the next morning that Thomas had dreamt of their darkness, even as they dreamt of his. Cassie crawling on hands and knees through smoke black as night blinding choking and everywhere seething heat and laughter, bones and screams; Jo sitting alone in a room filled with corpses, her beautiful dolls bleeding sawdust and stuffing from wounds too numerous to count, their fragile porcelain faces caved in or crushed by soldier’s boots; Quiet One floating in Light, surrounded by the music of Demons, trained by fists and leather and the glowing tips of cigars to never never never tell. Thomas saw it all, joined Cassie and Jo and Quiet One in the dark places where they only ever went in dreams.”

Seriously, I can't get over how much I loved this story. Also, you should check out Scape in general. They're looking to be a promising YA e-zine. The stories in the first issue are all impressive.

Enjoy the story and have an awesome Friday!

Flash Fiction Figment Feature

2011-10-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Under The Sea (cover)

That title's a new tongue twister in the making.

I got a very cool email from Figment Fiction over the weekend: my flash piece, Language Barriers, was selected to be a featured piece this week. Awesome! If you haven't read it, you should check it out. You should also join Figment because it's a super cool site.

Kim Culbertson, author of Instructions for a Broken Heart, had this to say about my story: "This has a fabulous first line and this writer really knows her genre. I laughed out loud when the main character tries to explain she's a 'virgin' and he takes her for a 'platonic' coffee. Wonderful, playful voice in this one."

Right on. It's always nice to hear that someone in the industry enjoyed your work :)

I'd also like to remind everyone that the Query Doctor is still open, so if you have a query you'd like to bring in for a check-up, please do! You should all have a look at Perna's rewrite of her query from last time.

I feel kind of cheesy every time I use the pseudo-medical jargon, but GUESS WHAT I DON'T CARE I AM A DORK DEAL WITH IT.

NANOWRIMO SEGUE

So, who's doing it this year? I think I'm going to give it another shot. I need to really buckle down on a new project to distract myself from the madness that is querying, and NaNoWriMo is definitely a fine distraction with the added bonus of whipping out a ~~crappy~~ fast draft. How about you?

In fact, how is your writing life going in general, writer pals? What news? Tell me I'M ALL EARS!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (book trailer)

2011-10-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: A Man's Gotta Do

I have a kickass book trailer for you on this fine autumn morning. Enjoy.

Here's a direct link if the embed isn't working.

Have you come across an awesome book trailer lately? Share in comments!

Query Doctor: FIRE AND ICE by Perna

2011-10-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's Perna's turn under the knife of the Query Doctor today. Be sure to tell her thanks for subjecting her query to the Doc!

If you would like to submit your query to be Doctored, please see this post.

Here's the drill: first, I'll post the query in its original, unaltered form. Then I'll give my diagnosis. Then I'll do line-by-line comments. Then I'll open it up to the commenters!

***

Perna sent in a rewrite! This is version 2.0. To see the original query and commentary, scroll down.

Shelly’s biggest problem used to be fighting with her mom about her future, until she starts to spontaneously combust. Now all she wants is to be normal again (space) - no fire, no secrets, no fear.

Kale isn’t faring any better. He just found out he’s a member of the super hero club, AKA Circle of Elements, but there’s just one glitch (space) - his partner is MIA, and also happens to be the girl he ran into on the sidewalk, (Different punctuation here, like a semi-colon or dash. Might need to rework.) the girl he can’t get out of his head.

When Kale and Shelly finally join forces, it’s clear they make a kick-butt team, but this partnership can only take so much of the secrets and attraction growing between them. Kale is more than happy to get closer to Shelly, (I'd do two sentences here instead of a comma) if only she were up for the challenge. Fighting monsters out of this world (Don't know how I feel about this wording. "Otherworldly monsters," maybe?) is easier than confronting your own issues (comma goes here!) after all. Carrying a secret with the potential to destroy her new calling (can't really destroy her calling... destroy her position?) in the Circle, all Shelly seems to do is push Kale further away, testing his limits. One thing is clear, (colon instead of comma) either Shelly can finally start trusting Kale, or she can watch the Circle burn down in the flames ~~caused by her~~ ("she caused." I keep changing that bit because it's passive the way it's written, and you want it to be more active). Fire and Ice is a 118,000 word YA Urban Fantasy, with potential for a sequel. (This last bit is fine, but should be its own paragraph with your writing credits/background included. Don't forget to write the title in all caps!)

I like this query a bit better. It explains more of the plot so I don't feel quite so lost. You clarified the bits about the super hero and the Circle, which is excellent. You brought Kale more front and center, which made me feel like this is a shared story rather than all about Shelly. You kept your brevity and narrowed in on the central plot, although the bit about "Kale's partner" was still a little unclear to me. I gathered that you're talking about Shelly, but you don't come out and make that connection, so it's ambiguous. I'd solidify that thread a little more.

You did end up losing a little of your voice. I like that you kept the "no fire, no secrets, no lies" line. I think you can comb through this again and flavor up some of the blander elements with your voice. The info about the Circle and the monsters was intriguing, but a little by-the-book. Play with your wording a little. Have fun with it!

You're definitely moving in the right direction. Stick with it!

***

Someone should have dropped a grenade in Kale’s cereal bowl. He would have been less disrupted than finding out he’s a member of a magical society with superhuman powers. Being a superhero could be awesome, if Kale’s life wasn’t irrevocably tied to someone whose been missing for seventeen years.

Shelly’s biggest problem used to be fighting with the her mom about her future, that is until she starts to spontaneously combust. Now all she wants is to be normal again - no fire, no secrets, no fear.

When these two join forces, it’s not only clear they make a kick-butt team, but that the spark of attraction between them is growing stronger.

To top it all off, Shelly is receiving mysterious e-mails that threaten her life, and could destroy the new magical world she has entered. Even though Kale is there pulling her towards him, the shadows that shroud the Circle are only getting darker. And even though they can give Shelly the answers she wants, she’s not sure if it’s the worth the price.

One thing is clear, either Shelly can finally begin to trust in Kale, or she can watch the Circle burn down in the flames caused by her. Fire and Ice is a 118,000 YA urban fantasy romance, and the first book in a planned trilogy.

Author's Note: I know the word count is long, but I'm working on cutting it down some more. I'm hoping to get some feedback soon from someone taking a look at it right now, and I'm looking for more beta readers to help out.

***

Healthy Bits: You have some great flashes of voice in here. You should bring out some more of that! The writing is generally solid except for a few grammatical errors that I'll point out in line-by-line. There's an intriguing set-up and good framework. The brevity is there, and as we all know, brevity in a query is key.

Under the Weather: We're suffering from some Scatterbrain here. The query is tightly written, which is awesome, but you're trying to introduce too many things without getting a fix on the core plotline, antagonist, or stakes. That doesn't seem possible, does it? But you'd be surprised O_O

Who's the MC? I'll go into more detail below, but I'm not sure at this point whether Shelly is the protagonist or whether this is a dual-narrator story. Kale got kind of pushed into the background, which is fine if he's not a narrator, but isn't great if he is. The storyline itself threw me for a loop because I thought we were being set up for an undercover superhero story but then we ended up in another world. I got bogged down in the little details you threw in at the last minute, which I talk more about in line-by-line.

I didn't have a real sense of Shelly or Kale's ultimate goal, or who they were up against. Yes, there's the bit about the world burning, but I'm not sure why Shelly cares, if that makes sense. This is a new magical world, not hers. She just wants to be normal again. Why does it matter to her that this world might burn? Who is the antagonist? What do Shelly and Kale want? If you can suss out those elements, I think this query will feel more structured. Here's a good rule of thumb: if you don't have room to explain an element, don't include it. Make sure each element you include ties in to the last.

This is a great start! Keep building on it!

***

Line-By-Line Comments

Someone should have dropped a grenade in Kale’s cereal bowl. He would have been less disrupted than finding out he’s a member of a magical society with superhuman powers.

I'd rework these two sentences. I really like the image of the grenade in the cereal bowl -- it has personality! -- but these sentences don't quite read smoothly. You might even combine them into one tighter sentence, like, "A grenade dropped in his cereal bowl would have been less of a disruption for *age here* Kale than finding out he's secretly a superhero." Or something. You get the idea. Also, don't forget to include your character's age for YA. Most agents/editors want to know how old the protagonist is.

Being a superhero could be awesome, if Kale’s life wasn’t irrevocably tied to someone ~~whose~~ who's been missing for seventeen years.

You lost me a little here. Who's the person who has been missing? Why does being "irrevocably" tied to someone mean that being a superhero isn't awesome? I'm left scratching my head because I don't see how this connects to him finding out he has super powers. Also, watch out for your grammar. Whose indicates possession ("Whose coat is this?") and who's is a contraction (for "who is" or "who has").

Shelly’s biggest problem used to be fighting with the her mom about her future~~, that is~~ until she starts to spontaneously combust. Now all she wants is to be normal again - no fire, no secrets, no fear.

Right off the bat, I'm getting the distinct impression that you have two narrators. If that's not the case, you should follow your protagonist only. If it IS the case, then I think you made this transition fairly well. A brief intro of Narrator 1, then a brief intro of Narrator 2. I like the little flash of voice here with the "no fire, no secrets, no fear" line.

When these two join forces, it’s ~~not only~~ clear they not only make a kick-butt team, but that the spark of attraction between them is growing stronger.

The "spark of attraction" line is cute, but a little cliche, especially for a character who's directly linked to fire. You could probably play with it to make it a little more original.

To top it all off, Shelly is receiving mysterious e-mails that threaten her life, and could destroy the new magical world she has entered.

I'm not feeling the "To top it all off" phrasing, because you haven't given us much to go with yet besides the onset of Kale/Shelly's powers and their growing attraction. That's not a long list of stakes. What follows that line are the increasing stakes. You lose me a little bit again with the magical world part. What magical world? Also, the E-MAILS aren't threatening Shelly's life. Whoever's WRITING them is.

Even though Kale is there pulling her towards him, the shadows that shroud the Circle are only getting darker. And even though they can give Shelly the answers she wants, she’s not sure if it’s ~~the~~ worth the price.

~~One thing is clear:~~ either Shelly can finally begin to trust in Kale, or she can watch the Circle burn down in the flames she caused ~~caused by her~~.

And here's where I get totally lost. First I wonder if Shelly's the true MC since this phrasing indicates the story's centered around her. If she is, this query needs to be focused completely on her. If she's not, Kale's stakes and goals also need to be worked in somewhere. Then you mention the Circle, and I go "huh?" I have no clue what that is. Is it the magical world? A group of people? If you introduce new elements, you must clarify. Remember, the person reading this has no clue about your story or the world you've built. Also, are Shelly and Kale from different worlds? I was under the impression that they were both from the same one.

Why doesn't she trust Kale? There was no indication before that she didn't, especially given the romantic hints. What answers is she seeking? There's a little too much going on. The focus needs to be narrowed down a little. But this is an intriguing set-up, nonetheless! If you can work on this to make it mysterious rather than confusing, you'll be on the right path.

Fire and Ice is a 118,000 word YA urban fantasy romance, and the first book in a planned trilogy.

Okay, you mentioned that you know the word count is long in your email, so I don't have to go into it :) Make sure the title of your novel is in all caps (FIRE AND ICE). "Urban fantasy romance" isn't a genre, so you need to pick either UF or paranormal romance. You could theoretically say "urban fantasy with romantic elements," but that can get wordy and awkward. I think you'd be just fine with UF, personally, as they typically include a romantic element anyway.

I'm wary about you saying this is a "planned trilogy." It implies that this one may not be a complete story on its own, which may raise some eyebrows. That doesn't mean you can't write a book with sequels in mind, just that you shouldn't expect it to get picked up as a trilogy up front. First: make absolutely sure your first book can stand on its own. Next: say that it has "sequel potential" rather than calling it a planned trilogy. If you get a call, THEN you can talk to a perspective agent about a trilogy.

***

Whew! Perna, thank you so much for letting your query go under the knife. Despite all my commentary, this is a very good starter query. With some work and polish, it'll be completely awesome. Good luck!

What say you, commenters?

Odds & Ends: Favorite Posts

2011-10-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Marry Me

To start us off: I'm sorry I haven't been around to many other blogs lately! I got swept up in doing a billion things this past week. I'll try to make it up to you guys this weekend.

Next: You should all go check out Book Riot! My dear friend Dr. B will be blogging about her thoughts on YA from time to time, and she's got some pretty great thoughts. Being a literature professor who teaches YA in her classes and all. There's also a lot of great non-YA commentary, as well.

Last: Everyone should go bid a fond farewell and say thank you to the fabulous Margo Lerwill, who is shuttering the doors of her wonderful blog for personal and professional reasons. She's leaving the blog accessible to all who might want to learn from it, and you should definitely swing by if you haven't. There are some great lessons to be had.

Margo also bestowed a very nice award upon me in her last entry, so I thought I'd end with that today. I don't usually post many awards on my blog because I REALLY HATE having to choose recipients, although I'm always very flattered to receive them. Still, I liked the style of this one. So here it is.

Now I'm supposed to link to seven posts from my blog for various categories, so... here we go.

Most Beautiful: Oof, this is a tough question. I guess I could read this two ways. The post where I felt something especially beautiful happened to me - winning the YA runner-up spot for the Katherine Paterson Prize - and the post that I feel is one of my strongest pieces of flash - Language Barriers.

Most Helpful: Um. I write a lot of posts in which I attempt to be helpful, heh. But I suppose based on pure popularity, my Common Cliches series has been helpful. Or at least entertaining. Also, my Query Doctor post! Hint hint send me your querieeeessss.

Most Popular: The post in which I did a character study of Doctor Who, by far. TONS of traffic to that entry. GOSH I WONDER WHY (*cough David Tennant cough*).

Most Controversial: I'm not excessively controversial, but I suppose my Rape is Not a Plot Point post sort of qualifies. Even though I'm not sure who would argue with me about it, but y'know. This is the internet. My On Rating Books post got slightly heated in comments, but that's about as much heated argument as my little blog's ever seen. THAT WAS NOT AN INVITATION FOR MORE. PLZ NO.

Most Successful: Not sure how to qualify this, but I'd probably have to say the Common Cliches series again, as well as my IT'S A TRAP! series.

Most Underrated: As far as an entry that I was especially pleased with but didn't seem to get a lot of attention, probably Becoming An Artist: Blundering vs. Style.

Most Prideworthy: Any of my flash fiction. I take pride in writing actual stories to (hopefully) entertain.

I know I'm supposed to pick recipients for this award, but... yeah, again with the hating to do that. So I'm going to cheat and say if you comment on this blog post, YOU ARE WORTHY OF THIS AWARD AND YOU SHOULD TAKE IT FOR BEING AWESOME :)

Oversaturation & Writing to Trends

2011-10-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Somebody To Love

If you've just recently gotten into the YA publishing sphere, you may be hearing a particular phrase quite a lot. That phrase is, "The market is oversaturated right now."

What, exactly, does that mean?

To understand this a little better, it's important to understand how (traditional) publishing works. Rule Numero Uno: it's slow. This is the commonly upheld truth of the industry. Finding an agent takes time, finding a publisher takes time, revisions take A LOT of time, approval for various steps takes time. Layout formatting, typesetting, developmental editing, copyediting, illustrating, cover art, printing, distributing... all these things take time. Therefore, the books you're seeing on shelves that just came out this week were, in actuality, originally purchased by the publisher anywhere from 1-4 years ago.

Which means if you're seeing a dozen new vampire novels or dystopians coming out, then there are already more in pre-publication and the interest in them is probably already waning.

This is what agents/editors mean when they tell you the market is oversaturated with a certain type/genre of book. It means they've already bought up bunches of it and have probably seen almost every virtual incarnation already, and that yours must be extremely original in some way if you want it to catch their eye.

Publishers are smart. When they see something becoming a breakout hit, they know there's a good chance that a high demand for more is on the horizon and they buy up similar titles. When Harry Potter took off, they looked for fantasy and magical schools. When Twilight started gaining traction, they looked for similar paranormal romance. When The Hunger Games garnered interest, they snatched up dystopias. They did it early and they did it often. Unfortunately for the general public, we probably didn't realize how popular something was until well after the initial buyouts happened.

After Twilight became the powerhouse it is today, aspiring authors jumped on it and started cranking out more and more paranormal romance. Probably because they'd read some and loved it, so they wanted to write it. Unfortunately, publishers were already well ahead of the game and getting pickier by the minute.

This is why you should never, ever, EVER specifically write to a trend. First, if you're writing something that you think will make you money instead of something you truly love, it will show in your writing. Second, once you hear about a popular genre, it's already too late. Your odds are already drastically lowered.

Here's what you SHOULD do: write the story that's in your heart. Don't worry about its genre. Write what you love. Figure out where it fits later.

Get a subscription to Publisher's Marketplace ($20 a month). Monitor the deals being made in your genre. This is how you can figure out what's being sold NOW, rather than what was sold three years ago. If you watch closely enough, you'll see a pattern in buying trends. Again, DO NOT WRITE TO TRENDS. However, this will help you see if the WIP you're currently working on has a place in the current market.

Focus on your craft. The best way to sell a book in any marketplace is to write a really, really good book. Here's the thing about all the big breakouts: they were original. They were something the market hadn't seen yet -- something the market didn't even know it wanted. Write the thing that people don't even know they want to read yet.

You can't scam this system. You can increase your odds in various ways, but there's no secret to becoming the next success story. It's one part talent, one part timing, one part hard work, one part luck, and a dozen parts of something else.

So, if the story in your heart happens to be a vampire romance or a tale about a boy wizard? That's okay. If it's what you honestly want to write, do it. At worst, it will be a learning experience. At best, someone will still buy it. I'm a firm believer that passion (along with hard work, talent, and a little luck) breeds success.

Basically, I'm telling you to work hard, write well, believe in your story, and forget everything you know about what's on the shelves of bookstores right now. At least until your first draft is done. THEN YOU SHOULD RESEARCH AND STUFF.

:)

Query Doctor: SIMULATE by Elanor

2011-09-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

The lovely Elanor was brave enough to step forward and be my first ~~victim~~ patient for the Query Doctor. Everyone be sure to thank her for being so selfless!

If you would like to submit your query to be Doctored, please see this post.

Let's get down to business, shall we?

First, I'll post the query in its original, unaltered form. Then I'll give my diagnosis. Then I'll do line-by-line comments. Then I'll open it up to the commenters!

***

In the year 2500, virtual reality is a popular form of entertainment. To sixteen year old Astrid, it’s a way of war.

Europe is at war with America, and Astrid (the most intelligent teen on the planet) is America’s head General. Using the mental simulation known as The Web to pre-fight all the battles and plan the perfect strategy, Astrid has led America to four years of victory. But all this changes when Astrid meets a strange boy inside the Web who kisses her… then kills her.

Astrid wakes up in real life to find that America has lost their first battle, thanks to the boy. Turns out he can steal information from her mind during the simulation and pass it along to the Europeans. Now the Web is virtually useless and America has to figure out a new way to win the war. In this case, that’s recruiting millions of soldiers from anyone who fails an intelligence test, including Astrid’s brother and her almost-boyfriend.

Caught between power-hungry friends, a twisted dictator and a schizophrenic spy, it’s up to Astrid to win the war before her whole society crumbles around her.

For fans of Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT and Orson Scott Card’s ENDER’S GAME, SIMULATE is a thrilling YA dystopia. It is complete at 100,000 words.

***

Healthy Bits: This is a technically solid query. Grammar, spelling, and structure are all good. The writing is polished and strong. My only quibbles are the lack of hyphens in her age (sixteen-year-old) and the ellipses, which are used to indicate missing words, not a pause. I know they’re often used that way in YA, but yeah. You’re definitely on the right track here. You center the query on your protagonist, you’ve boiled down your key plotline, and you increased the stakes as you went. You've managed to narrow down your focus well, which is an important query skill to master.

Under the Weather: While the writing is good and technically strong, I think this query needs an injection of oomph. It’s an interesting enough storyline, but it’s been done before, and there isn’t much in this query that jumps out and makes me think, “Well THAT sounds different from other war-inside-a-virtual-world-bleeding-into-real-life stories I’ve read/seen.” You need to highlight what makes yours different. Special. Find that little nugget of gold that makes your story shine. Hint: I think looking at the boy who “kisses then kills” her is a good idea. That made me perk up. But only you can determine what the most important and best bits to highlight are. BUT. Be careful not to mislead an agent as to what your MS is really about (aka, don't make it sound like there's a bunch of romance if there isn't). SO MANY THINGS TO BALANCE, I KNOW.

I worry that you might be focusing too much on THE WAR and not enough on Astrid’s personal war, if that makes sense. The stuff about Europe at war with America is all well and good, but in YA, it’s often more about the internal struggle. Action is awesome and fun to read, but the heart is in, well, the heart. What is Astrid herself personally struggling with? Beyond having to save the world, I mean? Draw that out of her and showcase it.

Though it seems like I gave you a bunch of stuff to work on, honestly, this is a strong starter query. I can tell you've edited it a few times already. You are so on the right track. Stick with it!

***

Now the line-by-line comments:

In the year 2500, virtual reality is a popular form of entertainment. To sixteen year old Astrid, it’s a way of war.

This is a nice opener. Punchy and to the point. I’m a little iffy on the wording of “it’s a way of war” because it doesn’t sound quite right to my ear, but that’s a personal preference. Interesting concept, if slightly generic – I think you could punch it up and express the same idea in a more unique way. This is your hook! Make it impossible not to keep reading because they love your voice and style!

(the most intelligent teen on the planet )

This raises immediate questions in my mind, not all of them good. How was it determined that she was the most intelligent teen? Did they test all the other teens? There are so many different kinds of intelligence that it’s hard for me to buy that ONE person is the world’s “smartest.” If it's too difficult to explain this concisely, cut it.

The Web to pre-fight all the battles and plan the perfect strategy

This sounds close to plot elements of ENDER’S GAME to me, which you're clearly aware of. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as you can show how it’s different.

Astrid has led America to four years of victory.

So, she’s been a military general since she was 12? That seems a little far-fetched to me. Training and primed to become a military leader, I’d buy. Making a 12-year-old America’s Head General leaves me a little hmmm.

But all this changes when Astrid meets a strange boy inside the Web who kisses her… then kills her.

LOVE this. Keep it. For serious.

fails an intelligence test

So they’re using anyone who fails an IQ test as cannon fodder?

Orson Scott Card’s ENDER’S GAME

Careful with comparing to classics. ENDER’S GAME is clearly relevant, but it’s a story from a different time. Comparisons should generally be made against books that are currently selling in today’s market. Which, yes, ENDER’S GAME still is, but it’s a classic. I don’t think the comparison will sink you by any stretch, because there’s an obvious link, but just something to think about.

a thrilling YA dystopia

I'd cut "thrilling," if only because it's usually best to let your manuscript prove its thrilling nature rather than telling people so.

100,000 words

This is a little steep for A) a debut novel and B) a dystopia. Not a deal breaker, but you’re walking that fine line. If the story’s good and every word counts, the number won’t matter. But, that said, DO make sure every word counts. Also, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you YA dystopias are a hard sell right now, but there it is. You've got to make this query pop. I know you can do it!

***

And thus ends the first edition of Query Doctor! Thank you again to Elanor for being amazing and allowing me to poke and prod her poor query. I hope it was helpful.

Commenters, feel free to chime in with your thoughts!

The Query Doctor is Open.

2011-09-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Rhythm of Love

My "Query Doctor" idea seemed to pique some interest, so I'm officially open for business :)

If you have a query that you need run through the ringer, go ahead and email me at sesinkhorn (at) gmail (dot) com. If you'd like, you can also let me know if there's something you'd like me to pay special attention to. For example: pacing, brevity, information, voice, plot appropriately conveyed, is it overwritten, etc.

These critiques will be done publicly on the blog for the benefit of all. If you wish to remain anonymous, please let me know in your email. I don't expect to have a massive influx, but in the event that I receive more queries than I can possibly post, I will have to be somewhat selective. In that case, I'll select queries that I think have the most teaching opportunity for everyone. Please don't be upset if your query isn't selected! I'll do my best to get to as many as I can.

I'm open to most genres (fiction, no non-fiction proposals, please), but my areas of particular knowledge are YA, MG, and general kidlit.

For some wonderful advice about writing a basic query, check out these two posts by Nathan Bransford: here and here.

Aaaaand here are a few things you should know about me: I'm a stickler and a perfectionist. I nitpick. I'll get on your case about grammar/spelling errors. I'm not mean or snarky, but I'm not afraid to tell you if something isn't working. If you're sending me your query, I'm going to assume that you want constructive criticism and not blind praise. I will do my very best to keep your voice and intentions in mind, and I ask that you remember that I am just one subjective person. If anything I post doesn't sit right with you, that's okay. I'm pretty good with queries, but I'm not the only opinion out there.

Lastly, I'll pass on the best advice I received about queries: keep it simple. Don't worry about subplots, themes, secondary characters, or explaining everything. Focus on your protagonist and the core plotline of your story. Remember: who is your protagonist, who/what are they up against, what are their escalating stakes, and why are they the only person who can carry this particular story? Everything else will bog you down.

I'm super excited to see what lands in my inbox!

Second Campaigner Challenge: The Imago Tree

2011-09-25T23:48:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Fields of Gold (cover)

Hello, writer pals. Today I have a little bit of flash... something. This is my entry for the Second Campaigner Challege for Rachael Harrie's Platform Building Campaign. If you like it, please go here and follow the link in that entry to find me on the Linky List and vote for me (I'm #107 [edit: or possibly #106? It looks like the numbers shifted. Look for "maybe genius: The Imago Tree."]). The winners are determined by your votes, so make sure you read a bunch and vote for the ones you like best. Thank you!

The Challenge is:

Write a blog post in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should:

-- include the word "imago" in the title
-- include the following 4 random words: "miasma," "lacuna," "oscitate," "synchronicity,"

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional and included in the word count), make reference to a mirror in your post.

For those who want an even greater challenge (optional), make your post 200 words EXACTLY!

I forewent the "extra challenges" this time because I just liked this piece better. Enjoy :)

The Imago Tree

Sometimes, during the days of late summer when the sun is high, the fig tree in the backyard releases a special kind of miasma. It creeps across the air, noxious and oversweet, making my nose wrinkle. Comforting and repulsive. Fleshy fruit gone rotten.

The junebugs spread their iridescent bodies over the drooping figs. Fill the lacuna of the trunk. Cling to the leaves. Oscitate lazily with clicking mouths, unwilling to let go of the season. I know how they feel.

Every time I come back, the grass is a little more yellow, the wall a little more broken. The netting of the basketball hoop hangs in ragged shreds. Nonetheless, the dog next door still barks and the hummingbirds still weave between the bougainvillea. The buzz of the beetles and howl of the dog and hum of the birds chase each other around my head in a strange synchronicity. I’m still here.

I’m still home.

Interview @ Perfecting the Craft

2011-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Friday (as covered by Stephen Colbert and The Roots)

This will be a fast entry today.

First: I've been interviewed over at Michelle Merril's blog! Click on through the link to read my ramblings about writing and reading if you'd like.

Second: I'm thinking about starting two new features on the blog. First is a "What's The Appeal?" series where I dissect the appeal of well-known YA characters (Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Katniss Everdeen, Miles "Pudge" Halters, etc.). So I'll ask you to post your favorites in comments! Who would you like to see me dissect? The goal is to figure out what attracts readers to certain characters.

The other series I want to start is something along the lines of a Query Doctor. I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoys writing queries and boiling down plots to their central conflict, and I'm pretty good at it. So, would anyone be remotely interested in this? If so, I can post my email and have you sent me queries to pick apart and rebuild :)

Happy Friday, everyone. Have an awesome weekend!

Questions Answered

2011-09-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who sent me a question! Much appreciated :)

Without further ado, your questions answered.

What are you working on? I know you're querying something, but have you started something new?

I am indeed currently querying a project, and I have two new ones on the back burner. I just started the first draft of a YA post-apocalyptic based on this flash story I wrote a while back, and I've begun outlining a middle grade mystery/ghost story. They're big departures from my last project (YA steampunk), both in genre and in voice. I'm excited about both of them.

Will you (or are you already going to) try writing other genres as well as YA fiction?

Oh boy, I don't know. I definitely think I'll try middle grade (obviously, since I'm currently outlining one). But those are the only two genres I really see myself in. I love the themes and the psychology behind those age groups so much. There's such a wealth of stories there. But who knows what the future will bring.

What's your favorite kind of YA to write and read?

My favorite? Yeesh. If you're going to make me choose, I'm going to say experimental/speculative. I love originality and thinking outside the box, both in my writing and my reading. If it's got an original, otherworldly plot or quality experimental writing, I want to read it. If it's weird and off-the-wall, I probably want to write it.

Where do you think YA is going? What will be the dominant sub-genre?

This is pretty much impossible to predict, haha. I know paranormal is still selling, but the shine is off. Dystopians are still booming, but they're declining as well. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd probably say thrillers/action novels. Something high-octane, but still based in our own world, rather than a fantasy/paranormal one. Maybe with a hint of time travel/lite sci-fi for flavor.

How did you get into YA?

I've always been into it, I guess. When I was a kid, I read Nancy Drew, Madeline L'Engle, Tamora Pierce, and any Christopher Pike or similar YA-ish horror I could get my hands on. As I got older, I naturally started reading "adult" fiction, but I kept gravitating back to the themes and storylines found in YA. Something about the changes we go through between adolescence and adulthood just sticks with me.

Ultimate smack-down - who would win: Buffy (the brawn) or Veronica Mars (the wit?)

Lord knows I love me some Veronica Mars, but there's not a chance she could best Buffy (who's reasonably intelligent in her own right, even if she's often portrayed as the silly blond). Now, if those two got into a witty quip war? That'd be something to witness.

How do you overcome your [writing] fears?

First, I have a great support network. I have wonderful parents who have believed in and supported my writing from day one, and I have an amazing fiance who's always more than willing to metaphorically smack me and tell me that I AM good, I AM brilliant, I AM a pro. So when I'm feeling freaked out, I go to them for a boost. Beyond that, it's mostly been about me studying and learning above and beyond what I need to know about everything writing and publishing. If I go in feeling like I'm not only prepared, I'm AWESOMELY prepared, it makes everything a bit easier. I face the good with the bad. I tell myself yeah, you're going to get rejections. It's okay. Everyone does. Accept them and keep pushing.

Ask Me Anything

2011-09-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I think I caught myself a cold. THAT'S FANTASTIC. Blech.

So, anyway, I'm taking it a little easy today and putting the ball in YOUR court! This is an Ask Me Anything post. You ask the questions, and I'll answer them in my next post. Is there something you'd like to see me write about in the future? Suggest it here!This is typically a writing technique blog, but I'm happy to branch out do reviews or character analysis posts if you'd like to see 'em.

One caveat on the questions: naturally, I won't answer anything I deem too personal or inappropriate. And I won't tell you my Social Security Number. That said, ask away, and I'll answer in Wednesday's post :)

Hope you had an awesome weekend!

It's a Friday.

2011-09-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: The Waiting

Hello everyone. It's Friday. My brain's kind of doing one of these today.

So I'm just going to ramble and hopefully be sort of entertaining. First, hello and welcome to all the new followers who have been gathering on my blog's doorstep over the last few weeks! I'm excited to see you! I hope you enjoy yourselves.

I'm still in the thick of the waiting game. Which is. You know.

But I also just landed a new job!

Also, I started a new project. One and a half chapters in.

The YA community kind of exploded this week over what appears to be a miscommunication on one or both ends and I don't really have anything to add or say about it that hasn't been said already, especially since I don't know the whole story either way, but suffice to say:

Aaaaaaand in closing, because I love you.

Have an awesome weekend! I'M SEEING THE LION KING IN 3D. YOU'RE JEALOUS. What are your plans?

Why Flash Fiction is Awesome

2011-09-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Attractive Today

I love writing flash fiction. You can find evidence of this all over my blog. Particularly under my "writing samples" label. I love the freedom and the experimentation of writing in short form.

First: what, exactly, is flash fiction? It's a complete short fiction piece that's usually 1000 words or less. For more of a challenge, writers can restrict themselves to 500 words or less. Sometimes it goes as long as 1500 words, sometimes it's as short as 100. The goal of flash fiction is to write an entire short story, not an excerpt.

Even if you're a true-blooded novelist to the core, flash fiction can break you out of old patterns and reinvigorate your writing. It's fabulous practice and makes you stretch your writing muscles in a different way than you're used to.

Still not sold? Allow me to inspire you further.

Reasons Why Flash Fiction is Awesome

It's fast. I mean, duh, right? But seriously. You can write the first draft of a flash fiction story from a prompt in an hour. Maybe even fifteen minutes. If you have a shiny new idea that you're throwing around, but you're not sure it's going to work and the idea of dedicating hours of time to it is daunting? Play with it in short form first. See if it holds water on paper. I've found many novel seeds inside a flash fiction exercise I set for myself.

Some ideas are better in short form. Not every story idea has enough going for it to carry an entire novel, but that doesn't mean we have to abandon it. Certain storylines are cleaner and more entertaining if they're quick and easy to digest.

It's excellent practice. Let's face it: not everyone has the time or mental energy to dedicate to writing four, five, TEN novels before they figure out certain elements of writing. Writing in short form is amazing exercise for hammering out voice, style, and word choice. It's great for learning economy of words. You only have so many to work with, so you're forced to make each and every word count and pull its weight. Flash is also wonderful for learning story structure. You have to have all the usual elements of a story, albeit in an abbreviated form - inciting incident, rising action, midpoint/climax, falling action, resolution.

You can be highly experimental. Want to try out a new style? Have an idea that seems incredibly far fetched and you're not sure it'll work? Interested in playing with line breaks, weird punctuation, or unusual typesetting? Flash fiction is an ideal test run without the large commitment of writing in novel form.

Yes, you CAN do it. Many novelists seem wary of flash fiction. They claim there's no way they can tell a story in so few words. They have a hard time cutting themselves off at 100,000 words, let alone 1000. But they can. Anyone can write flash fiction. It may be difficult, it may be unusual, it may be loathsome, but they can do it. I think writers should experiment with multiple forms before they decide they're all novelist, all the time. Being able to create full stories in different forms is an important skill to have. And, in my opinion, brevity remains the soul of wit.

Don't fear the flash. Embrace it! What say you, readers? Do you like flash fiction? Hate it? Never tried it?

Everybody Reads Your Blog. Yes, Really.

2011-09-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: You Don't Know Me

This morning's post comes from the "Things That Make You Go Duh" files.

Your blog is public, and it can and probably will be read by publishing professionals and/or other authors.

Everyone posts about this topic, but aspiring authors still seem to let it skip their mind. I suppose, in a sense, this is understandable. When our tiny little blog has a few dozen followers and gets maybe five comments a week, it can be difficult to imagine that anyone "important" is reading. But they are. Especially if you mention them by name.

I know it doesn't seem like anyone's reading, but comments and follower counts are no indication of who's actually stumbling onto your little corner of the Internet. Literary agents, editors, and published authors can and do surf aspiring author blogs. Some of them (rarely, but it happens) will even go so far as to contact the author if they like what they see. Not in the sense of, "Hey, I love your blog, can I represent you?" But more like, "Hey, you have a great blog and I really enjoyed your writing samples. I see that you're working on a novel project. I'd love to see pages when it's complete."

On the other hand, if they come across your blog and discover a lot of negative name drops and sourpuss angsting, at best they'll move on and never look back. At worst, they'll make a note of who you are in case your name ever crosses their virtual desk.

Here's the thing: these agents and authors are usually pretty Internet savvy. Many of them use Google Alerts for their names, their agencies, and their titles. Which means if you say something crappy about any of those things, they will know. And they will take note.

It's very easy to get personal on a blog or assume that if no one comments, it means no one reads. As an Internet marketer, I can pretty effectively tell you, "nope." The vast majority of blog readers are lurkers -- or people who read, but don't comment. Comments are a big deal, but they're no indication of how many people are actually reading.

Before this edges dangerously close to "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" territory, I'll say here that I absolutely do not think people have to be happy-bunny-sunshine-lollipops all the time, or that they can never post a less-than-glowing review or blog about their frustrations with publishing. No no no. I think such posts are honest, balanced, and healthy. Everyone's blogging style is entirely up to them.

What I'm saying is: be smart. Remember that this is your public persona, and people WILL see it. If you had a scuffle with a particular literary agent, don't name them. If you think X Agency are a lot of horrible meanie heads, don't name them. If you hated Book Y with such a fiery passion that it makes you feel like your ears will bleed if you talk about it, don't talk about it. Fair, balanced, and professional behavior is always okay, even if it isn't always positive. Pitching a hissy or being snide about another person for laughs? Well, that's your call, but you should know it can bite you.

There are some things that are great to blog about, and some things that are great to vent about over drinks with your writer friends. Make sure you know the difference.

Adventure Time & Cross-Audience Appeal

2011-09-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Adventure Time Theme

Can we talk about the cross-audience appeal of Adventure Time? Because I think we should.

I generally avoid comparing television or film to novel writing because they're drastically different mediums. There are elements that work very well on screen that don't work so well in prose, and vice-versa. But sometimes I think we can find the connection and relate it in a way we can apply as kidlit writers. Once such connection is the script writing of Adventure Time and how it can appeal to both children and adults.

If you're unfamiliar with Adventure Time, you may want to check it out. It's a short cartoon show on Cartoon Network (at least here in the States), but you can find many snippets and episodes online. At first glance, it seems like your typical silly "Saturday morning" (actually Monday evening) cartoon about a 13-year old boy who goes on adventures with his magical dog-pal.

However, if you watch the show for any length of time, even adults may find themselves sucked in to the irreverent humor and sly under-the-radar jokes.

I find Adventure Time strikes a remarkable balance between genuinely kid-friendly entertainment and appeal for older audiences without sacrificing the fact that, at the end of the day, it's aimed at children. Many writers aim for cross-audience appeal in their kidlit without actually hitting the mark. So, what's different about Adventure Time?

The writers never forget their target audience. You can't have it all. You have to pick your audience, especially where kidlit is concerned. Harry Potter was written for fantasy-loving children, Twilight was written for teenage girls. Rowling and Meyer selected their audience and tailored their work to appeal most to that one audience. They didn't try to fit the kitchen sink into their work so it would appeal to everyone in the world. However, they happened to create characters and stories that resonated with people beyond their target audience. Usually when authors actively try to write for both children/teens AND adults, the story flops. It can't decide what it wants to be.

The writing isn't dumbed down. While Adventure Time is not actively written for an adult audience, neither is the show poorly written. Many times, people assume entertainment for children needs to be simple and superficial because kids can't understand or relate to anything else. Not true. Kids can think a character saying "ALGEBRAIC!" in place of "AWESOME!" is just as hilarious as adults. This is writing that doesn't assume kids are too dumb or adults are too experienced to think it's entertaining.

The humor is varied and doesn't try to be too much of any one thing. Adventure Time doesn't shy away from either poop jokes OR dry sarcasm. No, I'm not implying that every work for kids should contain satire AND fart jokes. It doesn't have to contain either of those things. The point is that the writing doesn't think too highly of itself, but it doesn't go for cheap shots only, either. It strikes a fitting balance between low brow and high brow. Something very different audiences can enjoy.

Likeable, entertaining characters. This is a big step to crafting something universally loved: people have to connect with the characters. If there's a variety of interesting characters who are fleshed out and have desirable traits (WITHOUT being too perfect), people of all ages can feel a connection.

It's easier to make something for a younger audience appeal to an older one. This depends entirely on a person's attitude -- some adults refuse to have anything to do with children's entertainment because they feel it's beneath them. Oh well. But in the end, adults have been children before. They remember what it's like to be that young, and those feelings of newness and excitement can be brought out in them again. Adults don't read YA or MG literature for the "adult appeal." They read it because it's intended for a younger audience. It speaks to the child that still exists inside them.

What do you think? Have you seen Adventure Time? Do you like it?

The Trouble with Epilogues

2011-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Bicycle Race

Obligatory disclaimer: the following is, of course, my personal opinion, and is not intended as a blanket no-room-for-debate statement.

Obligatory disclaimer over'd.

Epilogues are terrible. Or rather, epilogues that focus on telling us that "it all turned out (reasonably) okay sometime in the future" are terrible.

Don't get me wrong. I think sometimes, rarely, there exists an epilogue that serves a real purpose in tying up a narrative and isn't completely awful. But more often than not, particularly at the end of series, I feel like epilogues exist more for the author than they do the audience.

And you know, I can understand that. It's unbelievably difficult to send off characters that you've lived with and loved for the years it takes to finish a series. You want to make sure they're taken care of. That they get their happy (or "happy") ending wrapped up in a neat bow. And I imagine some readers who've also come to love the characters enjoy seeing that everything worked out in the end.

I am not one of those readers. I don't want complete ambiguity after I've invested a lot of time and emotion into a series, but I also don't want to be force-fed the author's idea of a perfect ending. As a reader, I like my endings to be somewhat in my hands. I want to know that things are okay for now, not for always. Knowing that everyone is happy and married with three kids and an awesome job doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy. It makes me feel like I've been robbed of my "what if."

This is kind of what I mean when I say I feel that epilogues are more for the author than the audience. I'm one of those people who believe that once a book is out there in the world, once it's been read and consumed, it no longer belongs to the author. It belongs to the reader. Their imagination breathes life into it. Which is not to say that the author can't write with a certain intention in mind or that they lose ownership of their own creation, not at all. But once we release it into the wild, we can't control how other people react to it.

Part of letting go of that control is coming to terms with the fact that your characters no longer belong to only you. It doesn't necessarily matter how we think they end up 20 years down the road. What matters is that they live on in the mind of the reader.

This is difficult to balance. I don't think writers are some weird spirit medium that only serve as a conduit for transcribing stories from the void. We make conscious, personal choices when we put words to paper. We're trying to convey a specific scene, a specific emotion, a specific theme. We create worlds.

But in the end, we have to let our worlds go so that others might live in them.

First Campaign Challenge: The Door Swung Open

2011-09-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the first Campaigner Challenge for Rach's Platform-Building Campaign. Exciting!

The challenge: write a short story (or poem) in 200 words or less, opening with the words "The door swung open." For an additional challenge, you can close with the words "the door swung shut" and/or make your story EXACTLY 200 words.

Definitely challenging, but also a lot of fun. My entry follows. If you enjoy it, you can go read entries by other participants all week. They'll be linked in this entry on Rach's blog. (For the record, I'm #69 on the Linky list).

Viva la challenge!

***

The door swung open.

Sunlight made the drops leftover from the storm glisten gold. She breathed in the wet stone and flowering vines of the village. In the distance, the sea stretched beyond the boats until she couldn’t see anything but sky.

It was beautiful.

She wasn’t fooled.

Beneath the sweet rain and greenery lay something else. Something rotten; mechanical. The only sound was the distant clicking of the clock tower.

Her fingers wrapped around the lightweight metal of her pistol. She held it out of view behind the doorframe. It would be better if they thought her weak, unarmed. It would be best to stay holed up until their batteries wore down, but that wasn’t an option. Her water supply was gone.

She stepped outside, ignoring the bite of broken flagstones on her bare feet. Quick, now. A cracked pipe still leaking fresh water was hidden fifty yards down the street. She’d be there and back before they could react.

The faintest slick of oiled pistons sighed behind her.

No. Too late.

Slow as suffering, she turned her head and stared into the thing’s glowing green eyes.

As the mainframe began to pixilate and decay, the door swung shut.

Varying sentence structure

2011-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Devil

Woo, so now that I got my whole BRAIN BLEARGH thing out of my system in the last post, I'm feeling a lot better. Thanks to all of you for your supportive words, they were very much appreciated!

Today is a quick 'n dirty writing tip about varying your sentence structure.

When we write first drafts (or "starter" drafts), most of the time we're just trying to get the basic form of the story down on paper. If you're a pantser, your first draft might end up more like an outline than a novel, and that's okay. It's all part of your individual writing process.

What most of us don't worry about during that initial drafting process is the exact phrasing or structure that we'll end up with in the final draft. Since the first draft is all about taking the idea and getting it out, we just write whatever comes to mind. So long as we put the ideas down, we're good. Afterwards, we go back through and do rewrites and grand-scale edits and all that other fun stuff. And then we get down to line-editing, polishing, and smoothing. Part of that smoothing involves varying our sentence structure.

Have you ever read a novel excerpt that feels monotonous or boring? It may be the content, but it may also be that the sentences are structured the exact same way. Too many short bursts, or long multi-comma phrases, or lists, or conjunctions, or whatever. They may also start the same way, like this:

I jumped at the sound of a creak at the door. I crept slowly toward it and listened carefully. I placed my hand against the wood and reached for the knob. I knew then that I wasn't alone.

Repetitive sentences and paragraphs like these can make a reader's eyes blur. They start skimming because they become used to the structure and think they know what's coming. You want to avoid that. Varying your sentence structure mixes it up and makes the reader have to think about what they're reading.

CRASH. My heart hammered in my throat, making it ache with every beat. Something was out there. The floorboards sighed under my feet as I crept toward the door. I reached for the knob and stifled a gasp. It was freezing cold.

Not perfect, but much more interesting than the first example. All you have to do is watch for repeated words, sentences starting with the same word or phrase, or multiple sentences that are roughly the same length or structure. Then change them up!

Just one of the many ways to keep a reader's interest. What other methods do you recommend?

Pulling the trigger

2011-08-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: This is Why We Fight

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh. I have nothing super insightful to share today. Also, my foot itches. SO HERE IS A COOL PICTURE I TOOK OF A CAR FROM A FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA FILM.

LOUD NOISES.

Gotta be some inspiration fodder there, right? Right.

So, I started querying last week. My brain's been pretty scrambled ever since. Not with anything especially positive or negative, since I literally JUST STARTED querying and it's too soon for news of any kind. No, my brain's been scrambled with a general sense of LSF&({S{GSJDL?AKJHWHR 9*^&{(FJSDLJ I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M QUERYING A THING I CREATED.

I was totally going to play it COOL AS ICE and keep mum until I'd heard something either way, but I'm finding it excessively difficult to keep my "I don't even care" front up. Because I do care. I SO CARE. This is my first time playing the querying game. Not my first project, but definitely the first one I honestly felt was query-worthy. I've read everything about the entire process a hundred times from a hundred different viewpoints, and I still wasn't quite prepared for the deluge of emotions. AND I HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD ANYTHING YET.

So. There that is. Sorry, I think I got some brain vomit on you.

I'm not planning on posting updates or stats or anything of that nature, because I'm fairly private and think it's best to keep that to myself for now, but I had to get the initial BLEARGH out.

Who's with me? Who's been there and has words of wisdom for me? GULP.

Taking "write what you know" too literally

2011-08-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Rolling In The Deep

We've all heard that we need to "write what we know." But what happens when we take that recommendation too far?

If we stick too closely to the idea that we can only write about topics within our own realm of experience, we might be setting up limits for ourselves and our writing. We might end up with a semi-autobiographical (or even fully autobiographical) retelling of our own life, with an author avatar for a protagonist. Sure, this can work if it's done well (Looking For Alaska is often cited as a semi-autobiographical work loosely based on John Green's own experiences at his boarding school), but it can also flop.

A lot of beginning writers go this route. They write stories based around their own lives and they create characters that are thinly-veiled copies of themselves and people they know. Many people go through this stage. I did. I imagine a lot of my readers probably did, too. It's just one of the multitude of steps we go through on our writing journey, along with imitating styles we admire and trying to mimic the classics.

And, let's face it, the "write what you know" advice exists for a reason. If we write about a subject we have literally no clue about, it shows. Many a story has been slammed by critics for being insensitive or ignorant in its portrayal of X subject or Y character.

So, if we have to be careful not to write a fictionalized autobiography (which can, uh, cause some personal rifts if friends and family recognize themselves as characters), and we also have to be careful not to write about something we're completely clueless about, then what do we do?

We find the middle ground. We research. We give subjects the proper respect and proper due. It's absolutely okay to want to write about something you've never personally experienced yourself. For instance, I've never been male. Or a racial minority. Or an archeologist. But I can certainly write about those topics if I do my due diligence, which may include anything from reading other accounts of those topics to speaking with members of various groups.

The key here is really the pursuit of knowledge on the subject. Don't just assume you know about an experience you've never had (such as the experience of being a teenage girl when you have never, in fact, been a teenage girl). Read books about it. Talk to people in the know. Ask questions. Really try to get into the mindset, understand and empathize with a situation you've never experienced.

In the end, "writing what you know" can be taken too literally. We think if we've never experienced something, then we can't write about it. And honestly, that may be true if it's something too far out of our natural state of mind for us to understand. But we can also apply our own lived experiences to other topics.

For example: I have never been mugged. I do not know the fear or emotions that go along with such an experience. However, I have been home alone when I thought someone was trying to break into my apartment, and I have had overbearing men corner me at bars or on the street. I imagine I can very easily apply these similar experiences to the experience of being mugged to reasonably draw on what it might feel like.

What say you, readers? What do you think about the term "write what you know?" Do you think some writers are too strict with it? Not strict enough?

The "I'm writing like a kid" Excuse

2011-08-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Rebellion (Lies)

"I'm writing 'incorrectly' because this is how a teenager or child would actually write."

Oh my glob, you guys. Not going to lie: every time I hear this come out of someone's mouth after criticism regarding grammar mistakes/misused words/poor sentence structure/whatever, I kind of want to squirt them with the discipline bottle I use on my cats.

NO. BAD CHILDREN'S WRITER. BAD. YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW.

Yes, I have actually heard people make this excuse for problematic writing before. And no, I have never believed them for a single second. When I hear this, in my head I'm basically hearing, "I'm too lazy to fix it and I'm using the fact that I'm writing for young people as an excuse." Nice try.

Saying something like this seriously makes you sound like a condescending jerkwad. Oh, I see, you think children and teens are too stupid/uneducated/poorly read/whatever to realize when your writing is sub-par. You're also saying that they can't write for beans. That's nice.

I'd just like to clarify here that I'm not talking about deliberate voice construction, like in MT Anderson's Feed, where the teenage characters write/speak in casual slang. The intentional voice choices Anderson made in that novel clearly convey his intent: illustrating a dystopian society of people who are so jacked up on advertisement and immediacy that their method of communication has devolved and become vapid. Also, the prose itself is very well done.

What I'm talking about here is sloppy, unedited writing. Just because there are children and teenagers out there who write poorly doesn't mean YOU get to write poorly. That's like saying, "I'm writing a story about some random guy and I'm not going to correct my grammar mistakes because the average Joe probably wouldn't, either." No. Sorry. Play again.

For an illustration of intentional voice, I give you this example from the opening page of Feed:

"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.

We went on a Friday, because there was shit-all to do at home. It was the beginning of spring break. Everything at home was boring. Link Arwaker was like, 'I'm so null,' and Marty was all, 'I'm null too, unit,' but I mean we were all pretty null, because for the last like hour we'd been playing with three uninsulated wires that were coming out of the wall. We were trying to ride shocks off them. So Marty told us that there was this fun place for lo-grav on the moon. Lo-grav can be kind of stupid, but this was supposed to be good. It was called the Ricochet Lounge. We thought we'd go for a few days with some of the girls and stay at a hotel there and go dancing."

So. From that excerpt, you can see that there's a strong element of voice to this narrator, and that voice is casual and slang-y and sort of ditzy. There's a run-on sentence and some weird structure going on here, but it works. It works because you can tell Anderson is the master of his words and his style. His character sounds believably teenaged and he's breaking a few writing "rules," but it's clear he did so intentionally and with a goal in mind.

Now compare to this (completely made up) example:

"Josie is like completely, freaking lately. She dont have any idea how hard it is being a ghost like me. We were totally best friends until last year when I died and now its like she is this selfish bitch who doesn't want to help me at all anymore and she totally stole my boyfriend too. I hate watching them kissing it makes me so mad. If I could make my fist solid I would totally punch them both in their dumb faces but I can't so I don't. But I can sure as heck make sure her shower stays cold, mwa ha ha."

This is an extremely (intentionally) bad example, but the idea's there. I'm sure you could find someone out there somewhere who really does talk/write like this, but that doesn't make it pleasant to read. There's no purpose behind the authorial choices I made here. My narrator is a teenaged ghost, but none of this relates directly to that or adds to the situation in any way. It's just unedited and sloppy.

So. Don't refuse to edit or strengthen your work and then use the excuse that you're writing "like a kid." It's insulting. If you display mastery over your writing and use it to add to the voice/situation, THEN you can claim you're intentionally writing "like a kid." Respect the intelligence of your audience.

Can you all think of any other examples of novels where the narrator has a very childlike or teenaged voice without it detracting from the writing itself?

The Dreaded Multiple POV Novel

2011-08-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Everybody

In my post about Head Hopping from Monday, I mentioned that I'd be writing a companion entry dedicated to ~~the terrifying Mount Everest of~~ multiple-POV novels. Aaaaaand off we go!

I don't think it's a huge secret that multiple-POV novels are notoriously difficult to pull off, right? I mean, if you weren't aware: they're super difficult to pull off. Just so you know. Yes, in theory, anyone can write a novel from the point of view of several characters, but that doesn't mean it's going to flow smoothly or make sense or feel right. At worst, a multi-POV story can devolve into a convoluted mess where it's impossible for readers to connect to any of the characters because it's all chaotic and BLEARGH.

First things first: deciding on your style. Are you going for a dual POV? Perhaps a romance that switches between both leads? Or are you interested in more of an ensemble set up? Will it be a small ensemble (perhaps 3-5 characters), or a very large ensemble, like in Tom Leveen's Party? Dude wrote a book with eleven narrators. ELEVEN.

Okay, you know how many characters you're following. Now you have to decide how you're going to follow them. Is your narrator omniscient and all-knowing; able to peek inside the head of any character at any time? Or are you interested in more of a close-third or first-person narration style, switching off between scenes or chapters? (Here's where that whole head hopping post may come in handy).

Next, it's important to ask yourself why you want to tell the story this way. You need to make sure that there is a real, functional purpose for telling a story from multiple points of view. How will following multiple characters best serve the story you're trying to tell? Will the story be genuinely stronger if it's told this way, or are you doing it "just because?" If you want to try multiple POV because you have this secondary character you really like and you think it'd be fun to have a chapter from their perspective, that may not be the right reason.

A few reasons for telling a story from multiple perspectives: to maintain mystery and reveal information slowly. To increase tension between characters. To tell two or more "separate" stories that will eventually intertwine. To give different viewpoints on the same event, leading up to a big reveal. Revealing information to the reader that will increase the stakes for another character who is kept in the dark. There are many more, but these may give you a general idea.

Hopefully you've made your decisions about all these elements. Now comes the hard part: making it work. How do you craft a narrative from multiple points of view without turning it into a Slap-Chopped noodle salad? Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Stick to one POV per chapter. In order to avoid the dreaded head-hopping, which will horribly confuse your reader, it's a good practice to only follow one character's POV per chapter. It gives the reader a clean break before they have to jump into a new mind. If you must switch POVs in the middle of a chapter (and by "must," I mean you're doing it because it's what best serves the story and it's necessary), do so at a natural scene break. It might be a good idea to use a line break (an extra space between paragraphs) to establish time passed and/or character switch, as well. For examples of switching POV each chapter, see Shiver and Across The Universe.

When writing in first-person, it's important for each character to have a distinctive voice. This is probably one of the biggest complaints I see about multiple POV novels: the characters all sound the same. The reader can't tell them apart. What's the point of telling a story from multiple perspectives if the voices aren't different, etc. To cite Beth Revis' Across The Universe again, she does a pretty good job of giving her two MCs, Elder and Amy, distinctive voices with their own verbal tics and unique outlook. This isn't as important in third-person, since the narrator is more removed, but in first-person, a reader should quickly be able to tell they're in a different character's head. They shouldn't have to go back and look at the chapter heading to figure out whose POV they're in.

Don't overwhelm yourself. There's a difference between giving yourself a challenge and biting off more than you can chew. Don't go for the ten-character ensemble cast if you can't handle keeping track of that many different threads. Complicated does not necessarily mean better. In fact, it's usually best to keep it simple and build small, rather than juggling more balls than you can catch.

Be mindful of whose head you're in. Tying right back around to the head hopping post: remember that you can't jump from head-to-head-to-head without giving your reader fair warning/some kind of indication. That's where the chapter breaks/line breaks come in handy. You don't have to beat readers over the head with it, but the shifts should flow naturally and not be confusing.

Remember: you should be telling a story in multiple-POV because that's the way the story MUST be told. Multiple-POV can be extremely messy. It can become too repetitive and convoluted, or it can reveal too much information and kill tension. It's difficult to balance. But when it's done well, man, it can be amazing.

What are some of your favorite multiple-POV novels? Why did you love them so much? What did they do well?

Writers' Platform-Building Campaign!

2011-08-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Hello, lovely followers! OMG UNSCHEDULED POST THIS IS MADNESS.

So, you've all heard about Rach Write's Third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign, right? No? Well, you have now!

If you're an aspiring (or agented, or published) author who would like to connect with other writers who share your interests and are genuinely interested in helping you build your online campaign, then head on over to Rach Write's blog and sign up.

Get on out there and get mingling! And remember: to receive support, you've got to give it, too :)

What does "head hopping" mean?

2011-08-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: The Lazy Song

When sharing your work with other writing partners or receiving critique, you may hear someone use the term "head hopping, " as in, "You head-hopped from Character A to Character B here and it took me out of the narrative."

But what does that MEAN? Shouldn't you be able to tell the audience what every one of your characters is thinking and feeling at a given time?

Yes and no. It largely depends on which POV (point-of-view) you use, and even then, there are rules. Here's the thing: your ultimate goal should be to create a situation where, no matter how fantastical your story becomes, the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief and go along for the ride. However, even when writing fiction, there are certain things that will yank a reader out of the story and make them go, "Wait a minute, that's not right."

Head hopping is one of those things. "Head hopping" is a term that refers to a sudden and unexplained point-of-view shift. In other words, it's a situation where either the current POV character makes an observation they couldn't possibly know, or the reader suddenly finds themselves "hearing" the thoughts or emotions of a different character in the scene. It's a form of "authorial intrusion," or when an author lets their own knowledge show through in a situation where it doesn't work.

This is especially jarring in first-person POV, because first-person automatically indicates that we are inside one particular character's head. Therefore, that character can't make observations like, "Mrs. Anderson pursed her lips and wondered if I'd forgotten to do my homework again." There's absolutely no way for the narrator to know what Mrs. Anderson is thinking. Unless they're a mind-reader, but for the purposes of this post, we're assuming telepathy is a non-issue.

Third-person grants a little more leeway, since omniscient narration is possible. Still, it's usually a good idea to stick to the POV of one particular character in a given scene in order to prevent confusing your reader. However, if you're writing in close-third (aka, following one and only one character throughout the majority of the novel, as in the Harry Potter series), then you can't head-hop at all. When we were in Harry's POV, we didn't know what Ron or Hermione or Dumbledore or Snape were thinking or feeling. We only knew the actions Harry observed from them, and drew our own conclusions alongside him.

It is possible to pull off head hopping within a single scene, but it's incredibly difficult to do well. More often than not, the head-hop is a casual throwaway mention that the author didn't really intend, as in the Mrs. Anderson example above. Just be mindful of whether you're revealing a non-POV character's emotions or thoughts in a situation where it's not possible for your MC to know those things. Always remember, the MC can make subjective observations about a persons body language, speech, word choice, or actions, but they can't "know" what they're thinking.

Here's an example of head hopping:

"Keith clenched his teeth and punched the wall in frustration. With a howl of pain, he gripped his hand to his chest. The knuckles were bleeding. Great. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Marcy stood there, completely disgusted and wishing she'd never agreed to go out with him. Keith thought about trying to explain the situation with Dad and Jake and their whole stupid fight, but he knew it'd be useless. She'd already made up her mind."

Here, we're in Keith's POV, but we're "hearing" some of Marcy's thoughts. Although this is third, we're still in close-third to Keith, and there's no way for him to really know what she's thinking. He can only assume based on her actions.

Here's the same scene without the head hopping:

"Keith clenched his teeth and punched the wall in frustration. With a howl of pain, he gripped his hand to his chest. The knuckles were bleeding. Great. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Marcy stood there with a grossed-out look on her face. Keith thought about trying to explain the situation with Dad and Jake and their whole stupid fight, but he knew it'd be useless. She'd probably never go out with him again anyway."

As you can see, very minor changes. He sees the grossed-out look and assumes she'll probably never go out with him again. We remain in Keith's head the whole time.

I'm planning on writing a companion-entry to this one about multiple-POV novels, so keep an eye out for it! So, dear readers, have you ever seen an incidence of head hopping that you felt totally worked? What was it?

Highlights from that WriteOnCon thing.

2011-08-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Uprising

^ I saw them last weekend. THEY WERE VERY GOOD.

So, you might have heard about that whole free online writing conference thing that happened this week? Maybe? I think a blog or two might have mentioned it. I'm not sure.

You know I'm talking about WriteOnCon! Everyone is probably going to be posting their recaps over the next few days. Here's another one! These were some of my favorite events from WOC.

Ninja Agents - This was a genius feature. How do you take the anonymity offered by the Internet and make it wonderful instead of full of trolls and ire? You give a set of literary agents Secret Ninja Identities and allow them to subtly stalk the WriteOnCon forums at undisclosed times. You never knew where they were going to pop up, and it headed off the inevitable rush of folks clamoring for an agent's attention when they know they're around. They gave some fabulous and much appreciated advice on queries and pages. I even got a visit from a Ninja Agent on my query! EXCITING.

Pacing in YA Contemporary (video) - Author Sara Zarr talking about pacing in contemporary fiction, which is a really important skill to be able to nail.

Myths and Misconceptions (video) - An agent and two editors discuss what hooks them and what keeps their attention.

LGBT Lit (video) - Author Scott Tracey makes some awesome points about writing Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual literature.

Writing Magical Realism - Author Nova Ren Suman (Imaginary Girls) discusses five ways to create magical realism and what makes it magical realism, as opposed to paranormal.

I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S HOT: Building Believable Romance - YES. YES YES YES. THIS. A topic discussed eloquently by editor Martha Mihalick.

How to Write A Synopsis - Ah, the dreaded synopsis. Author Jodi Meadows talks about why you shouldn't fear it, but embrace it.

Character Development - Author Lauren Oliver discusses how to make your characters more than superficial.

Submission Basics - The ever-informative literary agent Ginger Clark goes over Submission For Newbies. Every aspiring author should read this before they ever even think about submitting a query to agents.

Live Chat with Holly Root & Barbara Poelle - Oh my god. You must rewatch the transcript of this chat. It was not only hilarious, but incredibly informative.

Panel of Professionals - Want to see the brains of some leading industry professionals get picked over? Head on over and rewatch the transcript of this chat.

Writing a Great Query Letter - Agent Jim McCarthy will tell you how.

Revision - The Forest of Hands and Teeth author Carrie Ryan tells you the truth about revision: you're going to have to do it. Everyone does. Everyone. Here are her tips for why and how.

Live Chat with Marietta Zacker, Joan Paquette, & Michael Bourret - Yet another great panel with three literary agents.

Online Etiquette - Editor Liesa Abrams discusses what aspiring authors should and should not talk about online. If you have any sort of online presence, you should probably read this.

Andrea Brown Literary Chat - Four agents from Andrea Brown Literary discuss their preferences and answer questions. AB Lit is one of the most well-known agencies in the KidLit industry. These ladies really know their stuff.

Did you attend WriteOnCon? Which panels were your favorite?

Write smart. Write well. Write whatever.

2011-08-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: This Too Shall Pass

Outside Lands in San Francisco was AWESOME, by the way. Because I knew you were interested. I got to see a bunch of amazing bands and eat a bunch of delicious street food and it was fabulous.

Back to the grind!

So, goodness knows that we writerly types can suffer a serious case of the Self-Doubts. The realm of writing and publishing is big and scary. There are so many RULES. There are all these rumors about agents with shark teeth who will snark you into oblivion if you stick a toe out of line. And the worst part? All these rules and preferences seem to be largely subjective and contradictory. It's enough to make just about any wannabe author cower under the covers of their safe, warm bed.

Mmmmmm bed. Anyway.

A lot of newer writers who are just starting to learn the ropes often have all kinds of weird questions to ask, especially when they have the ear of a publishing professional. Which is awesome! Knowledge is power! But more and more, as I watch the questions that pop up repeatedly, it becomes clear that many "young" writers (in experience, if not in years) are completely under-confident in their abilities and want someone to reassure them that they're doing it right.

So I'm here to tell you: if you're writing and you're enjoying what you're doing, then you're doing it right.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not the sort to be all "rah rah, do whatever you want, ignore the rules, and if the publishing industry doesn't understand your art, it's because they're great big dumb-dumbs!" Because I do not believe that. At all. I believe that writing with style takes time, effort, and discipline, and even then it might take several tries before you write a manuscript worth selling. Them's the breaks.

BUT. I also think it's important to write the way that works best for you. As long as you've put in the effort to understand the technical and stylistic elements of writing, you can do almost anything you want.

If you're wondering if it's okay to write in a weird style or break Writing Rule #342 or get all experimental, the answer is yes. It's okay. It's all okay. Go nuts. As long as you're doing it well, you're doing it right. After a certain point, when you've learned enough and written enough, it's okay to start being confident in your work. You don't have to seek permission to experiment, because in the end, it's impossible for a subjective party to tell you that something is 100% never okay. It's always about the execution.

So hold your head up high and do absolutely anything you want. I will forever and till the end of time espouse that the rules exist for a reason and you must know them in order to break them, but break them you can. If you can make it work, then shoot for the sun, dudes.

Don't bind yourself to someone else's personal preferences. Even the hardest of the hard-nosed literary agents have been known to fall head-over-heels for something they should completely hate, but someone managed to pull it off with flair.

I think the moral of the story is this: Write smart. Write well. Write confidently. And write whatever you damn well please.

YA!Flash and a Blog Award

2011-08-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Nobody Dances Anymore

Good news, everyone! The YA Flash tumblog is off to a great start. If you're on Tumblr, you should follow along for your daily YA fix. Spread the word!

Several people sent an award my way this week (thank you Margo, Charlee, and Megan!), which gave me a big case of the warm fuzzies. This is the Libester Blog award, which is bestowed to awesome blogs with less than 200 followers.

The rules of the award are:

   1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
   2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
   3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
   4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
   5. And most of all - have bloggity-blog fun!

I have to admit, I kind of hate having to pass an award forward, because I always feel like I'll miss somebody or make someone feel bad, so I usually prefer not to do it. But because I like the idea behind this award, which is to highlight some great blogs with smaller followings, I'll try it out.

My first pick is Ms. Phoebe North, who is bright and funny and recently agented. Her blog posts are always thought-provoking and intelligent, and she writes some stellar book reviews. She's never afraid to be honest, and she's always professional.

Next up is Brooke Busse, who is one of my current lovely critique partners. She posts a lot of original work she writes from various prompts. They're always clever and fun to read. A great out-of-the-box thinker, and a promising young writer.

Emy Shin is another critique partner. She writes YA and is currently working on a speculative novel with a really cool time travel premise. Keep an eye on her!

I know they already got a nudge this week, but I'll throw out Wicked and Tricksy, as well. W and T is a fabulous group blog exclusively dedicated to speculative fiction (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, etc.). The posts are helpful, and every week they feature a different guest poster. If you write spec fiction, you should check them out.

And... unfortunately I can't pick a fifth blogger because the Follower tracker apparently went poof, so I can't tell who has less than 200 followers. Ugh. So, go ahead and pick someone from the comments section of this post to visit!

I'm off for a weekend of food, wine, art, and music at Outside Lands in San Francisco and it's going to be awesoooooome. No post on Monday, because I will be completely bushed. I'll be back in action on Wednesday. Have an awesome weekend!

Increasing tension in tensionless scenes.

2011-08-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Tune: Get Over It

If there's one thing I've learned from writing ALL THE WORDS, it's that things are inevitably going to get cut. Scenes that serve no purpose for the greater narrative, needless words, boring filler, etc. And it's not just the "bad" stuff that gets the axe -- I've had to cut many a scene that I've absolutely loved, but it didn't quite work.

Even with all that chopping, there's still a chance that some relatively bland scenes are going to make the cut. An unexciting-but-necessary conversation. A homework assignment that serves a purpose in a later scene. Going to class because your character is, you know, still in high school. Whatever.

Such scenes may be boring, but they're often important to make the plot move forward or transition scenes smoothly. Still, they aren't naturally tension-filled moments. So how do we inject more tension and raise reader interest without coming across as forced?

Here are a few methods.

Make your scenes serve double, or even triple, purposes. Layer on that conflict. If you need a conversation to happen to convey important information to your protagonist, make sure there's something else going on to bring up the interest level. Maybe your character is in a rush to get somewhere important when they're stopped and they're worrying about where they need to be while the conversation is going on. Or maybe they're nervous about the person they like seeing them talking to someone else. Maybe they're convinced they're about to get in trouble. The possibilities are endless. A caveat: be careful not to have too many balls in the air. You don't want the reader to become confused or for important information to get lost in the shuffle.

Make something happen. Boring scene? Have something interesting happen. If your protagonist is in the classroom, have someone pass them a cryptic note. Have the teacher slap the desk with a ruler. Someone gets sick and has to leave. Characters play a cool game on their graphing calculator. Something. Just make sure to keep it relevant to the scene. Don't go for something so distracting or significant that it ends up a loose plot thread instead of a tool for tension.

Keep low-tension scenes short and to the point. If you're going to have slow scenes, keep them quick. (Is that an oxymoron? Eh.) Don't drag your readers through paragraphs of lengthy prose when you can make the same point in a few sentences.

Unless the scenes are truly necessary for plot movement, setting, or mood, cut them. Back around to cutting again, but it's true. This goes for any and all unnecessary scenes -- if you can cut a scene without confusion or choppiness, do it. If there will be some confusion, but it can be remedied with some general tinkering, then cut and smooth.

Use slower scenes to incorporate some internalization. Remember, tension doesn't have to be big and loud. It can be as quiet as stress from a recent fight with a parent or friend. If you have the downtime, use it to give your character a moment to think things over. Character development is important, but as always, be wary of waxing on too long or edging into whiny territory.

Amp up the dialogue. Conversations between characters should really serve some sort of purpose. Although people make random small talk in real life, you don't want to incorporate that into your fiction unless you're doing it for a reason. You can express tension in word choice, tone, whether or not one party is keeping a secret, or an escalation in emotion.

If all else fails, remind the reader of the stakes. I'm not suggesting you haphazardly drop in a stilted reminder of your protagonist's goals, but if you really need to beef up a boring (but necessary) scene, try to find a way to bring those stakes to the forefront again.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate that you should absolutely, totally, completely, 100% make sure a scene is necessary to the overall plot/mood/setting of the story. If you determine that it is, but it's still tensionless, then find a way to crank it back up.