MG novels

The best way to improve your writing is to read so I’ve been consuming stories for the last few weeks.

I’ve taken them electronically, on paper, and I’ve listened to a few audiobooks. A dog narrates my MG story, so I’ve sought out talking animal stories – Bunnicula, and others. I’m going for humor so I checked out Barbara Parks and The Origami Yoda and Bruce Corville’s My Teacher is an Alien. I packed a bunch of books and took on vacation. When I and ran out, I went to the Salt Lake city and county library systems and loaded up online.

What amazing times we live in. Not only are there things like libraries, but from thousands of miles away, you can check things out. All you need is a library card and an app called Overdrive and it will get you into numerous library systems around the country. The county seems to have more kid’s lit available than the city. You can’t always find what you’re looking for, but they have plenty of other titles.

Available was Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy. I liked her last book so went with this one. At WYFIR last summer the importance of antagonists was stressed. Stead gives us the typical school bullies and adds the in-your-head kind. The MC had several things going on and Stead brought everything to a close in a feel-good kind of way. Makes me wish I could write like that. I fell into the story to the point I forgot to look at it with my writer’s critical eye. Another wonderful thing Stead does is her use of metaphor. She uses Seurat's pointillism style of art in which numerous insignificant dots combine to make a big picture. Also at WIFYR, Martine Leavitt's had a session on metaphors. This is a great book. 

Another great author, another I-want-to-write-like-that is Tom Angleberger. In The Strange Case of Origami Yoda Angleberger wastes no time getting to the heart of the MC’s desire. This happens the very first sentence. He builds from there, and saves the final reveal to the very last sentence. He has the upper MG kids pegged and his story is engaging. It is so well crafted.

Other finds: The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict. Trenton Lee Stewart’s prequel to the Mysterious Benedict Society seems to break the rules for fiction and does the opposite of Angleberger’s approach. Published last year, this feels like an old fashioned book in which the writer takes time to lay down the setting and build the character. The book is long - 480 pages – and it takes a good hundred pages in before we get a sense of MC’s goal and the story gets off the ground, but. I liked it.

In looking at humor, Barbara Parks is good. I reread Skinnybones, one I read aloud numerous times to students. Parks is one of the best. Also read her My Mother Got Married (and other disasters). They were written in the 80s when it was more acceptable to set the humor before pushing a story. She addressed kids of divorced parents dealing with a remarriage in the one and seems to have nailed the voice for that audience.

I looked at two of the Bunnicula series, narrated by a dog. Written in the 70s, the thing that impressed me most was audience. The Bunnicula books do not feel like they were written for kids. They feel like a Broadway play storyline and I kept thinking that they missed the kid voice. Don’t know why these books were so popular. The family in this story seemed too successful and Leave-it-to-Beaver clean, unlike the more street smart, families-working-to-make-ends-meet people I’ve taught. They have helped me hone in on my target MG boy audience.

So I’ve been going through some children’s literature.

(This article also posted at http://writetimeluck.blogspot.com)

We're writing a book...

There were so many wonderful things going on at WIFYR. Ann Cannon’s workshop certainly ranked high for those of us in attendance.

The morning workshops are the heart of WIFYR. Carol Williams pulls in ten superb faculty members who run morning sessions. Each manages their groups differently, but the major focus is critique of participants’ work. Not only does this help improve your own story, learning to critique makes you a better writer.

Our group was particularly amazing. Time together, four hours a day, five mornings a week, creates a special bond. Ann guided our crew by encouraging honest yet positive critique. Each of us shared twenty pages and was afforded an hour or more of attention solely to our own stories. We first had to mention authors or books that inspired us, or whose style we want to imitate. Ann let workshop members share their thoughts first, and then finished with comments of her own. The opinions and open discussion of several writers gives the author a variety of options for improving their story.

I liked the routine Ann established for us. We began the day with a free write. She would put a noun, such as bicycle or dog and we wrote about it. Next came a recap of the day prior. We shared thoughts that struck us from the afternoon sessions of Martine Leavitt, J Scott Savage, or the agents and others.

Before we moved onto critiques, Ann shared some of her craft secrets. The WIFYR word was to torture your characters and Ann agreed. She suggested brainstorming obstacles for them to overcome and told us to make the situation helpless for them. Keep the characters grounded in the space/time continuum so that the reader knows when and where the action occurs. I like what she does once she’s finished the first draft. Ann prints the whole thing out, puts it in a 3-ring binder, and celebrates that she has a book. You may choose to put it away for a few weeks so that you return to it with fresh eyes. When she’s ready to revise, she rereads the whole thing, several times, armed with sticky notes. She reads it looking to insure her characters are grounded, that it makes sense. She notes on a different colored sticky when she reads for plot, and then again for character, and language clarity. Then she takes the stickies and writes herself an editorial letter, the same kind an agent would send pointing out the flaws in the manuscript. She prints it and puts it in the front of the 3-ring binder and checks the things off as she addresses them.

Perhaps the most trivial, yet notable thing she suggested was a daily affirmation of ourselves as writers. This evoked memories of Stuart Smalley’s “I’m good enough; I’m smart enough; and doggone it, people like me” from Saturday Night Live. But the idea is good. The mantra for the week she gave us: “We’re writing a book that someone will want to read.”

Thanks, Ann. We learned a lot.

Exhausted and exhilarated

Wow, what a WIFYR. The many participants and I have just come off an inspiring week. Carol Williams again brought in some topnotch people.

The theme, if there was one, was torture your characters. Agent Ammi-Joan Paquette conducted an afternoon session in which she said stories need strong antagonists. The more your main character has to go through, the stronger they will be, she advised. She said to make it hard on your protagonist. You are not their mother; you are the evil overlord.

My workshop instructor is the amazing Ann Cannon. This local writer (and weekly Salt Lake Tribune columnist) has published in PB, chapter books, MG, and YA. She has a gift as a teacher, as well. Ann offered numerous tidbits and insights and she agreed with character tormenting. She suggested brainstorming obstacles for the MC to overcome. You need to get them to a point where it appears hopeless. You have to torture your characters.

Critique is the heart of the workshops at WIFYR. It can be an unsettling thing, throwing your work out there, to be picked apart. That especially is true when doing so with strangers. Ann smoothed our little group through the process, first by offering tips, then by sitting back and letting us do the bulk of the critiquing. She had the last word with each critique, expertly pointing out what we may have missed.

My fellow writers were impressive. Their observations were keen and their criticisms were offered with honesty and kindness. And they can write. The skill and variety of writing in our group was amazing. We went everywhere from New Zealand to China to a place by the sun, from Victorian England to Nazi Germany and home again to modern day. Our characters dealt with everything from voices in their heads to panda snot. They had crazy mothers, were sold off by their parents and saw bugs crawling out of hair and blue butterflies circling heads. They were stuck in a parking lot in their underpants. Oh, we tortured them, all right. By week’s end both characters and writers were stronger.

Martine Leavitt said it best at the conference end. The week was exhausting and exhilarating. 

For Young Readers

Not to harp about it, but WIFYR is just around the corner. There are still few spots available. You can sign up here.

I am an assistant this year and am excited to be working with Ann Cannon. She is a regular at the conference and I try to attend her afternoon sessions when I can. Ann writes at many levels in children’s literature. She’s done PB to YA. You can read her each Saturday in the Salt Lake Tribune and thus knows how to entertain adult readers as well.

Carol Williams, again, has assembled a host of talented speakers and faculty. Cheri Pray Earl, Sharlee Glenn, Steve Bjorkman, J Scott Savage, Kris Chandler, Martine Leavitt, Matt Kirby, and Mette Ivie Harrison all join Ann and Carol in running workshops. Something new this year, there are mini-workshops that participants can sign up for. Each morning focuses on a different theme, from blogging to screen writing and short stories to rhythm, rhyme, and riddle. Elana Johnson, Alison Randall, Krysten Crow, and Marty Nabhan are running these sessions.

Also in attendance will be an editor and two agents. Carol has pulled in Alyson Heller from Aladdin Books. The agents include Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency and Steven Fraser from the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.

The Utah State Poet Laureate, Lance Larson will be the keynote speaker in Thursday afternoon.

The conference is a great place to grow your craft. I have yet to do a LTUE and have heard high praise for LDStorymakers, but the For Young Readers conference is refreshing. Any effort to cultivate your writing skill is satisfying. Carol’s conference is the place to do it.

Experts

I think I’m studying this thing too much. When I first began writing, I wrote carefree, jotting down events as they came to mind. Then I was introduced to WIFYR and became aware that there are formats and procedures and formulae to follow. More and more, I began to research what the experts were saying on writing. Now I’ve got so many “do this, don’t do that” things going on in my head, I’m bound to go against some expert’s opinion with every sentence I write.

Cheryl Klein, Martine Leavitt, Alane Ferguson, Ann Dee Ellis, Mathew Kirby, Kathleen Duey; these are some of the gurus to whose savvy advice I try to adhere. The latest is John Truby. I recently caught up on some back copies of the SCBWI journal when I ran across an article in the November/December issue. It talked about Truby’s book, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Silly me. I went out and purchased it.

I’m not sure which of the 22 steps I’m on, as they are not readily laid out in the table of contents. Truby addresses story anatomy from a screenwriter’s perspective but his concepts can be adapted to any fiction writing. I’m on the chapter about story structure. Truby says story structure is how a story develops over time.

He says your MC must have a weakness and a need. The weakness could be the character is arrogant or selfish or a liar and the need is to overcome the weakness. Then there must be desire, which is not the same as need. Desire is what the character wants. It is the driving force in the story and something the reader hopes he attains. Need has to do with a weakness within the character and desire is a goal outside of the character. The hero must, of course meet an opponent. Truby says the opponent does not try to prevent the MC from accomplishing their goal as much as they are in competition for the same thing. In a mystery story, it would seem the protagonist is opposed to the perpetrator of the crime. Under the surface, however, they are both competing for their version of the truth to be believed.

This is where the conflict is with my work-in-progress (my incredibly slow work-in-progress). It’s a middle grade book, so the story is not as intricate. Do kid characters need the complexity of adult characters? I get it that you can’t make them too sterile, too one-sided. Should a middle grade MC be arrogant or a liar?

Likewise, I’m having trouble with the opponent aspect. In my story, there is no real antagonist. There is a mystery the MC is trying to solve, but no person is preventing him.

The experts say do this or do that. My gut tells me different. What’s a poor writer to do?