Tag: writing (Page 7 of 15)

Middle Grade vs. Young Adult with Anna Staniszewski Author of The Prank List

June 30, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Anna Staniszewski is one of my favorite guest bloggers because she always brings such insightful topics and discussions. Today, as she celebrates the upcoming release of her newest book The Prank List (The Dirt Diary #2), Anna is talking the difference between middle grade and young adult fiction. Welcome, Anna!

What Separates Middle Grade from Young Adult Fiction?

by Anna Staniszewski

I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d tackle it here. Let’s start with a couple of definitions.

“Middle grade” is generally for ages 7-12, though it can skew a bit younger or older depending on the project (short chapter books vs. longer novels). Middle grade usually features protagonists in elementary or middle school, and if it deals with topics such as sex or violence, those tend to happen off-screen.The ending, while not necessarily happy, should be hopeful.

“Young adult” generally features teen protagonists (14-19) and is often a coming-of-age story for readers 12 and up. (The actual readership of YA varies quite a bit. You might have fifth-graders reading it, but you also have adults who read nothing else.) Issues such as sex and violence can be shown on-screen and can even be of a graphic nature, though you often won’t get as much detail as you would in adult books. Endings, while often hopeful, can sometimes be bleak.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can see that content isn’t necessarily the dividing line between MG and YA. The bigger distinction is how the content is handled, whether it’s off-screen and implied or on-screen and shown.

The protagonist’s age is often a factor, as well, although there is some wiggle room here, too. My main character in The Dirt Diary is 14, for example, but she’s in 8th grade. That puts her right smack in between the two genres, which is why I often refer to the book as “tween,” although it’s generally considered MG.

For me, the biggest difference between MG and YA is the character’s emotional journey. I’ve heard more than one person say that in MG, the character goes through lots of life-changing experiences but can still remain a child at the end. In YA, the character goes through lots of life-changing experiences that force him/her to become an adult. This might be too simplistic of an answer, but I think it goes a long way to explain the difference between the two.

In MG, you have characters exploring their worlds and experiencing what things outside of their own lives are like. In YA, you have characters exploring their own identities and figuring out where they belong in the world. The role of family is different in both; in MG, the family tends to be part of the story, both a support system and a source of conflict, whereas in YA, the family is often secondary or more a source of conflict than anything else. Again, this goes back to the idea of staying a child vs. becoming an adult. At some point, you need to find independence from your family (as many YA protagonists do) and strike out on your own.

Over the past decade or two, the MG and YA markets have changed quite a bit. It used to be that a book with a 14-year-old girl would automatically be labelled as YA, but now that you have more adults reading YA, the genre has started to focus on older and more mature protagonists. That means that MG has expanded too, including a wider range of books, sometimes those that feature younger teens.

Because the market is always shifting, I try not to drive myself too crazy with definitions, but I do try to keep in mind the general attitude in MG vs. YA. That, I think, hasn’t changed too much. In MG, we often still see characters branching out into the world, whereas in YA we see characters who want to find their places in it.

The Prank List blurb:

Rachel Lee never thought she’d fight for the right to clean toilets. But when a rival cleaning business starts stealing her mom’s clients, Rachel will do whatever it takes to save herself the horror of moving to Connecticut—which would mean giving up her almost, sort of boyfriend, her fantastic new pastry classes, and her best friend Marisol.

Operation Save Mom’s Cleaning Business is a go!

But when the series of pranks Rachel and her BFF cook up to take down the competition totally backfires, Rachel worries that her recipe for success is a dud. You know what they say—if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen…

About the Author:

Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Staniszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. Currently, she lives outside Boston with her husband and their crazy dog. When she’s not writing, Anna spends her time reading, daydreaming, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. She is the author of the My Very UnFairy Tale Life series and the Dirt Diary series. Her newest book, The Prank List, releases on July 1st from Sourcebooks. You can visit Anna at www.annastan.com.

The Best Part of Writing by Ally Malinenko Author of This Is Sarah

June 27, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Have you heard of BookFish Books? It just so happens to be a new publishing company run, among others, by a couple of my best writing buddies, Erin Albert and Mary Waibel. And one of their new releases is This Is Sarah by Ally Malinenko. Ally is here to talk about her favorite part of the writing process. Welcome, Ally!

The best part of writing, for me, is the beginning. You know the part I’m talking about. That first moment where you see a character.

You picture her, standing on the train trestle, her hands clutching something. What? Anything. Down below someone calls her name and she starts running. Who is she? What is she running from? Why? What’s in her hand? In her head? In her heart?

That leads up to the first draft. I think a lot of people dislike the first draft. It’s full of mistakes.

Of bad writing.

Of atrocious moments of dialogue.

But I still like this part the best. The part when my brain spins faster than my fingers can slide over the keyboard. It’s all exciting and new and I’m not even sure what’s going to happen next. Look at me! I’m TELLING A STORY!

If only it was like that all the time.

Then comes editing, which should in fact be called Crippling Self Doubt. Revisions are difficult for me. Probably because I don’t take enough notes in the beginning. I don’t slow down. I don’t stop and think, say “Wait if X happens, what about Y?” I just write X X X X X X and then fall into some massive plot hole that I can’t claw my way out of. Next comes the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And that was what I had been doing with the Sci-fi Time Travel TOME that I had been working on for years. The manuscript that no matter what I did it seemed determine to stay just inches out of my grasp.

And then something weird happened. One morning there was an image of a teenage boy, full of anger. Before he had a name I just called him “My furious boy.” And then a girl, trapped in a home she no longer knew how to navigate. In a family that was suddenly so foreign that she felt abandoned.

And the one person, his girlfriend, her sister, that they shared in common. The girl who got in her car one day and disappeared.

I slowly tried to fit them together like puzzle pieces – Colin (my furious boy) and Claire (my trapped girl), together on the good ship Heartbreak.

Like I said at the time I was (am) in the middle of a big revision on a very long, very complicated Time Travel Sci Fi TOME. But each morning, when I got up at 5 am to write, there was my furious boy and my sad girl. And over time, I started hanging out with them more.

I’m not going to say anything as ridiculous as “follow your Muse” because a) that sounds like the terrible sort of stuff that amateur (read: me) writers say and b) it makes it sound like your Muse is this elegant ghost-y thing in a white chiffon dress that sounds like Cate Blanchett when she whispers in your ear which is just ridiculous.

What I am saying is that sometimes your brain switches gears on you.

Go with it.

There’s a part of you that knows what story you want, what story you NEED to tell before you even do.

Trust that part of you. The rest is mostly typing.

This Is Sarah blurb:

When Colin Leventhal leaned out his bedroom window on the night of May 12th and said goodbye to his girlfriend, he never expected it would be forever. But when Sarah Evans goes missing that night, Colin’s world unravels as he is transformed from the boyfriend next door to the main police suspect. Then one year later, at her memorial service, Colin makes a phone call that could change everything. Is it possible that Sarah is still alive? And if so, what is Colin willing to do to bring her back?

And as Colin struggles with this possibility, across the street, Sarah’s little sister Claire learns how to navigate this strange new land that is life without her sister. Even as her parent’s fall apart, Claire is convinced to keep on going. Even if it kills her.

THIS IS SARAH is a meditation on loss, a tale of first love, and a harrowing journey about what it is to say finally let go and say goodbye.

Excerpt:

They found her red Chuck Taylor sneakers five miles from where her car was, deep in the woods.

One was unlaced, as if she had undone it and slipped her foot out of it right there under that canopy of trees.

The other was still tied.

Snow filled them like little red candies covered in sugar.

In the police station, in that evidence bag, they seemed so small, as the snow slowly melted off them, staining the fabric and dripping into the bottom of the bag. I couldn’t imagine them fitting Sarah’s feet. I couldn’t imagine them fitting my own.

Sarah’s empty shoes.

I thought about how they’d never be worn again. How she would never slide her foot inside, how her fingers would never tug those laces and loop them closed.

Her room back home was filled with things that would go unused. They’d just sit there, waiting for Sarah to come home, collecting dust.

All the things Sarah left behind.

When I saw the shoes, sitting in the police station, a noise escaped me. Not quite a sob, but a cry—a shock of disbelief—and my hope retreated as I realized I was now one of those things. Like her clothes, her jewelry, her records or her shoes.

I was just another thing Sarah left behind.

About the Author:

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collection The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press) and the children’s fantasy Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna Books). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

Crafting Stories and Laying Carpet with Ron Scheer Author of The Forager

June 20, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

I always enjoy introducing new authors to readers and today I have the pleasure of hosting Ron Scheer, debut author of the YA dystopian The Forager. Like many of us writers, Ron works another job in addition to writing and he offered to share the unique perspective a carpet installer can bring to the writing process. Welcome, Ron!

Let’s face it, I’m a carpet installer first and writer second. Someday I hope to reverse those roles, but until that happens I still have a family who thinks they need things like food, clothing, shelter, and iphones. While at first glance the two occupations may seem drastically different there are more similarities than you might think. To be good at any profession a worker must have the specific tools, skills, and knowledge required to make a customer happy.

First, a note on quality:

Whether that customer is looking to buy a book or hire the services of a tradesman, they want the highest quality workmanship. No customer is going to be happy if I leave their home with wrinkles in their brand new carpet. A manuscript with holes in the plot, typos, changing points of view, (switching between first and third person) or submitted in any manner other than what the publisher stipulates is the same kind of unacceptable, shoddy workmanship.

Once the customer and I have established that installing carpet is hard work and deserves its fair amount of compensation the job begins. Much like the preliminary work that goes into a book, I have to do my homework. Measuring the job, figuring the square footage, and telling the customer how much carpet they’ll need. Then telling the customer that no I can’t do the job correctly with less, quit asking.

The outline of the story is the writer’s guide. If it’s done correctly the story follows in a natural flow. This is the stories tack-strip (if you’re not familiar, these are the strips with the small, really sharp nails that go next to the wall and hold the carpet tight after its stretched.) If the outline is done wrong, the story doesn’t stay tight and you’ve just wasted your time. It’s important to note while hammering in the tack-strip that at all costs avoid hitting your thumb. If you hit it hard enough, it will explode just like a smashed grape. (Believe me, I’ve done it.)

Next comes the carpet padding, or cushion if you like being precise. This is the first draft of your story. You’ve got the idea down. Its base is firm, yet there’s room for it to give a little. And let’s face it, all first drafts need to give a little (or in my case a lot).

You might think the final step is stretching in the carpet, you’d be wrong. Stretching the carpet can be compared to your second draft. Now we’re getting somewhere. The story is definitely readable, and to an unpracticed eye it might even seem presentable. But the work is not done.

The last and final step to installing a carpet, the one that makes customers stand up and take notice. The one that insures that the next time they need an install they’ll call me, is the final attention to detail. Just like carefully going over your manuscript and removing all those loose words that simply do not need to be there, a good installer will always vacuum the new carpet, removing any stray fibers and use this opportunity to give his work a final look to make sure that everything is the way it’s supposed to be. (Yes, I’m a guy, and I vacuum.)

My favorite part of the job is when the customer/publisher looks at the final product, holds their hand to their mouth and and says, “Oh Wow, I love it!”

The Forager Blurb:

It’s been thirty years since the economy collapsed, and all Dillon has ever known is a world without electricity or medicine, living in a community constantly under the threat of starvation as they struggle to feed the rest of the country.

Orphaned and alone, unsure of his future, Dillon serves as a lookout, watching for the bands of Scavengers that prey on towns like his—while also watching for the mayor’s twin sons, who are bent on terrorizing him.

When a Forager rides into town, he opens Dillon’s eyes to the possibility of a different life. And when a Scavenger attack leaves the Forager injured, he sends Dillon out on a mission that may mean the difference between life and death for the mayor’s missing daughter. Dillon is about to find more than a way to help his community—he’s about to find himself.

The Forager can be purchased at the MuseItUp bookstore.

About the Author:

Ron Scheer lives in the heart of the heartland with his wonderful wife, a daughter, and a son. He spends his days selling and installing carpet. His nights, however, are devoted to books. Whether reading or writing, there are always words at his fingertips. The Forager is his first novel.

Don’t Judge Your Characters with Linda Budzinski Author of The Funeral Singer

May 23, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Today’s guest and I go all the way back to my very first SCBWI Poconos writing retreat in 2009, so I am super happy to have Linda Budzinski, author of THE FUNERAL SINGER, on the blog today. Her words about not judging characters apply not only to writing but also to life. Welcome, Linda!

You Can’t Judge a Character by Her Role

It’s a lesson I keep learning over and over again: Don’t be too quick to judge people. Or maybe I should say, it’s a lesson the universe keeps trying to teach me, since I continue to fall into the same trap.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Maybe it’s the guy in the next cubicle at work. Maybe it’s the grouchy neighbor. Maybe it’s your kids’ lacrosse coach. They act like a jerk, so you proclaim them a Jerk.

Until one day you find out this Jerk has a child with a severe disability, or he spends every weekend traveling hundreds of miles to visit an elderly parent who can’t even remember his name, or she’s in the middle of a nasty divorce. That’s when you realize that maybe he or she wasn’t always a Jerk. Maybe he or she deserves some patience, some grace, some understanding right now.

The same is true with our characters. When I set out to write THE FUNERAL SINGER, I wanted to write a novel about the difference between pop culture heroes and real-life heroes. My rock star characters would be shallow, selfish Jerks, while my real-life hero (a funeral director) would be a loving, caring, charitable gentleman.

Only they’re not. At least, not entirely. Most of the rock stars turned out to be pretty decent people, and the funeral director is far from flawless.

Even my main character, who throughout the course of the book goes from being a normal teen-ager to a pop culture hero to an everyday hero, isn’t all good or all bad along the way. She’s sweet and sensitive and infuriatingly self-centered, all at once. Because in real life, that’s how people are. People are both good and bad. And no matter what their station in life, everyone has problems. They may keep their problems well hidden, but they have them.

When we set out to create characters, we need to know their roles in our books. That is, we need to know whether they are protagonists (the main characters, who want something) or antagonists (the characters who stand in their way), but we do not need to proclaim them good or evil, angels or devils, sweethearts or jerks. Because chances are, they will be all of the above. And they will have problems that may never make it onto the page, but they will have them, and those problems will affect the way they behave.

And that will be what makes them interesting.

The Funeral Singer blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Melanie Martin has witnessed her share of lame eulogies and uninspired epitaphs while singing part-time at her dad’s funeral home. She’s determined to be more than a funeral singer, and more than just someone’s “beloved wife” or “loving mother.”

When Mel’s impromptu rendition of “Amazing Grace” at a local rock star’s graveside service goes viral on YouTube, she becomes an Internet sensation, attracting thousands of fans and followers, and even a hot rock star boyfriend–Zed Logan, bass player for The Grime.
But instant fame isn’t easy–and neither is love. Especially when Mel realizes she’s falling for another guy–one who may just want her heart more than her voice.

About the Author:

Linda Budzinski lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Joe, and their feisty chihuahua, Demitria (also known as Dee Dee, The Puppy, and Killer). She grew up in a tiny town called West Grove, in southeastern Pennsylvania. In the second grade, she announced to her parents that she wanted to be a “Paperback Writer,” just like in the Beatles song. She majored in journalism in college and now works in nonprofit marketing and communications.

She’s a sucker for romance and reality TV and has been known to turn off her phone’s ringer when watching “The Bachelor.” Her favorite flower is the daisy, her favorite food is chocolate, and her favorite song is “Amazing Grace.”

LINKS:

Website: www.lindabudzinski.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindaBudz

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Linda-Budzinski-Author/188747034633426

YouTube Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gs0PX1fEdg

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Funeral-Singer-ebook/dp/B00FDWYBRS/

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-funeral-singer-linda-budzinski/1116970019?ean=2940148424031

What Taylor Swift Can Teach Writers by Jeff Chapman

April 25, 2014 / Katie L. Carroll

Jeff Chapman returns to the blog today to celebrate the release of his latest story, Last Request: A Victorian Gothic. He brings us an enlightening and fun piece on storytelling. Welcome back, Jeff!

What Taylor Swift Can Teach Writers

by Jeff Chapman

My daughters recently discovered Taylor Swift. You know what that means for me. I tried to interest them in U2, The Doors, or Mazzy Star but no luck. So, as I’m listening to Taylor Swift ad nauseum, the writer in me starts analyzing the lyrics. Why are these songs so popular? (I have to give Swift some praise here for writing songs that at least have some story to analyze.) Here’s a link to a Youtube video for “You Belong to Me,” one of her more popular tunes. It’s safe for work. Unless you’re a guy trying to maintain your macho credentials. In that case you should wait until you get home and everyone is asleep.

Let’s begin with a few observations on the video. As for the guy, if that’s the girl next door, why does he ever leave the house? And why did he close the curtains? And what self-respecting father would allow his daughter to have a bedroom window looking directly into a guy’s window? I would have that window bricked over so fast.

As for the story, we have a geeky girl (glasses, books, and studying) who has a crush on a very popular boy. He’s out of her league. It’s hopeless. But, his uber-popular cheerleader girlfriend is no good for him, doesn’t appreciate him. If he would take a serious look at geeky girl, he might understand that she’s the best girl for him. And that’s exactly what happens in the end.

So why is this song and others like it so popular? The story is every less-than-popular girl’s fantasy. Swift is doing something smart. She’s aligning herself with the majority of teenagers, putting words to the hopes and dreams of the masses along with a catchy tune. Writers often hear the mantra “write the stories you want to read.” The idea is that those stories will be your most impassioned work. We hear successful writers repeating that phrase as if it’s a formula for success. Is it? What if what you want to read isn’t what loads of other people want to read? Will you create great stories that no one reads? Maybe, instead of focusing inward, we should tailor (pun intended) our stories to resonate with the hopes and dreams of the masses. Something to think about.

Last Request: A Victorian Gothic blurb:

“For the love of God, cut my head off.” The last request in Uncle Silas’s will shocks everyone speechless, everyone except his favorite niece, Anna. More than death itself, the claustrophobic Silas fears a premature burial. Will her elders carry out his request? Anna is certain they will not. It’s up to her to do the right thing, even if it is a bit grisly. Armed with butcher knife and candle, Anna heads for the crypt underneath the church in the dead of night. All does not go according to Anna’s careful planning.

Step inside a dark story in the tradition of the penny dreadful, at times humorous and horrifying, but don’t close the door behind you. Someone might lock you in. Last Request can be purchased on Amazon.

About the Author:

Jeff Chapman writes software by day and speculative fiction when he should be sleeping. His tales range from fantasy to horror and they don’t all end badly. He lives with his wife, children, and cats in a house with more books than bookshelf space. You can find him musing about words and fiction on his blog or you can connect with him on Twitter (@JeffChpmnWriter), Facebook, Goodreads, or his blog.

Jeff’s latest title is Last Request: A Victorian Gothic, available for your Kindle at Amazon. At times horrifying and humorous, Last Request follows a young girl’s attempt to carry out her late uncle’s curious request.