Posts Tagged “writing for children”

Five Writing Truths We Can Learn from Christmas Carols

By on December 18, 2013   /   Book Lists  

 

 2103 Christmas-Snow I have a confession to make: I love Christmas music. In fact, I like it so much that my wife had to institute a family rule—no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. I eventually got her to compromise, convincing her that Christmas music was allowed before Thanksgiving, as long as it had snowed first. This year, pre-Thanksgiving, I had the stereo pumping “Jingle Bells” as soon as Virginia had its first snowfall.My wife accused me of cheating because we live in the state of Washington.

I say that she never specified the location of the snow.

Anyway, with Christmas now only one week away, I began to wonder what writing wisdom might be gleaned from the music of the season. From the traditional “Away in a Manger” to Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” here are five Christmas songs and the writing truths they reveal:

1)      “Away in a Manger”: I don’t care if you are reading this while at work in a busy office. Don’t be shy. Go ahead and belt out the opening lines of this Christmas classic. What do you have? Within the first four measures, you already know about the no-crib issue.

If you want to pull in the reader, start with a problem that needs overcome.

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2)      “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”: There’s more to be learned from Rudolph than the proper hyphenation of phrasal adjectives*. In fact, the writing truth embedded in the song is as illuminating as Rudolph’s nose:

A single unique trait is often enough to create a memorable character.

3)      “Blue Christmas”: Elvis had snow. He’d finished decorating the Christmas tree. But none of that could pull him from the doldrums of a blue Christmas. He was missing his “Dear.”

Have your protagonist struggle with the loss of something or someone he cares about.

4)      “Christmas Don’t Be Late” as sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks: The squeaky voices of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore get really annoying, really fast. My tolerance of their singing definitely doesn’t extend to listening to the whole song. So . . . when you write, I don’t care if your character is a singing chipmunk or a granny who grew up deep in the mountains of Kentucky.

Don’t overdo dialectical speech in yer dialogue. It’ll get distractin’.

5)      “The Christmas Song” (a.k.a., “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”): Written on a hot summer day in 1944, “The Christmas Song” went from a few lines penciled in a notebook to a finished song in about 40 minutes. No, you probably won’t crank out a timeless masterpiece in under an hour. But . . .

You never know when the muse might strike.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, start writing, and see what happens.

Now, before you give your muse an opportunity to inspire, take a moment. Pick a Christmas carol. Pause and ponder. Then share with us some holiday-based writing wisdom of your own.

 2103 Christmas-Gift *Note: If you have no idea what a phrasal adjectives is, you may not know why you should never write about a “ten year old boy.” Thus, in the spirit of the season, I offer this ever-so-useful link as my grammatical gift to you: Grammarist: Phrasal adjectives.

 

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“Page 5 Test”

By on November 15, 2013   /   Book Lists  
Stop twitching. This post is not a 5-page test, so I don’t care how scarred you are from childhood test-taking trauma. Build a bridge and get over it. Then keep reading in order to learn something that may help your writing.You okay now? Good. Here’s the scoop. . . . Thanks to a giveaway on Goodreads, I recently received a free copy of Darcy Pattison’s book Start Your Novel. When reading it, my interest was captured by one of her ideas for checking the characterization in a novel’s opening—she calls it the “Page 5 Test.” (See, I told you it wasn’t a 5-page test. You should have trusted me. I’m very reliable. Except when I’m lying.)  Start Your Novel
 Runaway Twin Not only did I decide to use the Page 5 Test to check my own work-in-progress, but as a bonus exercise, I decided to run a Page 5 Test on a children’s novel I’m currently reading—Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret. Based on Darcy Pattison’s idea, here’s what I did:

  • I read the beginning of Runaway Twin, only going as far as what would equal approximately five double-spaced pages of a typed manuscript.
  • After I finished reading, I listed everything I’d learned about the main character from those opening pages. Here’s my list:
  1. The main character lives with a foster mother named Rita.
  2. The main character’s name is Sunny.
  3. Sunny is 13 years old.
  4. She loves Twinkies and junk food, but Rita is a health nut.
  5. Sunny is opinionated. (As the first-person narrator, she states: “In my opinion it is cruel and unusual punishment to put a thirteen-year-old girl who was raised on junk food into a home that serves tofu and cauliflower.”)
  6. Sunny wears her hair in a ponytail (at least sometimes).
  7. She has switched foster homes frequently, running away from at least a couple of them. (This also tells me Sunny isn’t afraid to take action when she sees the need.)
  8. She seems to like Rita (despite all the tofu and cauliflower) and doesn’t plan to run away from her.
  9. Sunny doesn’t consider herself a “bad kid,” although she doesn’t do much school work because she knows she’ll just get moved to a new home and school again anyway.

Notice the variety of things Peg Kehret wove into those opening pages. There are basic things such as the main character’s name and age. There are bits about Sunny’s family situation (foster child) and a glimpse into her outlook on life (Why bother with school work if you’re going to get moved again?). And there’s the barest mention of her appearance.

In only a handful of pages, Peg Kehret effectively pulled me into caring about her main character by not skimping on the information about Sunny and by making sure the details she included provided depth, not an inundation of surface-level facts. (Hey, I’d rather know Sunny has the guts to run away from a bad foster family than know how tall she is and whether or not she has a dimple in her chin.)

So consider printing out the first five pages of your own WIP. Read ’em. Then make a list.

What details are revealed about your main character? What isn’t revealed? Are you building a strong character with a unique voice, or is your protagonist coming across as shallow and boring? By running Darcy Pattison’s Page 5 Test, you may be surprised at what you discover, and you may get ideas for strengthening your novel’s opening pages.

Besides, you’ve got to try this. Know why? There’s gonna be a test tomorrow.

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Are Changes in YA novels Changing MG books too?

By on October 18, 2013   /   Book Lists  

Although we usually focus on middle grade in this blog I want to take a moment to consider what shifts in YA publishing mean for younger readers. YA books are not like they were when I was growing up. They’re not even like they were five years ago. Here are some things that I think are impacting the content of books for teens.

  • Money

There have been a few book franchises that have out sold adult books by a mile which has attracted both media attention and writers who would not previously consider this genre.

  • Movies

Most of the big YA book franchises have gone to film, generating more money and also, I suspect, influencing the content of books that are expected to go to film. It’s one thing to write a book, and then as a completely separate enterprise, write a screenplay. I think it’s an entirely different thing to write a book when you know the movie deal is part of the package.

  • Romance

Most of the major romance novel publishers now have a YA imprint. This dramatically increases the number of teen books where romance is the main focus of the plot. However teen romance tends not to be shelved in a separate part of the library or bookstore, so many teens pick up a romance novel thinking they are going to get a YA novel with more substance and variety in plot themes than the typical romance novel. Also the publishing model for romance writers tends to be 2 or 3 novels a year. Some write as many as 4. Most people writing stand alone titles for young readers are not expected to write more than one book a year and many only publish a book every 3 or 4 years–a schedule which allows for careful research, mastery of craft, and artful editing and book production.

  • New Adult books

There is a new category of books for 18-24 year old readers in which the usual conventions of tamer sex, milder language, less intense violence, and upbeat endings don’t apply.  And many adults are reading YA novels not as teachers, librarians, and parents but as if they are written for their adult needs and issues. This has greatly expanded the readership and sales of YA but it has also tended to age up the content and loose sight of the younger end of YA readership.

So what does this all mean for the world of the MG reader. I had an interesting conversation with a person who has written many award winning YA novels. Her most recent is a great coming of age story in a gorgeous historical setting. She was asked in the editing process to make the main character 13 instead of 14 so that it could be marketed as MG fiction. Given the historical setting, a 1 year age difference didn’t affect the plot in the way it might if the character was in a modern school setting and had to be moved from high school to middle school, so she agreed. It works beautifully as a middle grade book. But here’s what bugs me. It works beautifully as a young adult book as well. The character is trying to enter a competitive profession. That’s really a teenage concern and not much of an issue for the 8-14 year olds. The character loves a girl and decides to spend the rest of his life with her. That is a clear candidate for YA, except they don’t have sex. They don’t even kiss. Given the historical period and the structure of the plot there isn’t really room for these kids to get together in a physical way. I think the book just wasn’t edgy enough for YA and so it got moved to MG.  All of which leads me to two questions.

  1. Are we seeing a move to “age up” MG fiction?
  2. What is out there for the transitional teen who is too mature for MG fiction but is not interested in the intensity of much of the new YA fiction?
  3. In short who is serving our tender-hearted readers?

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I heard Jeanne Birdsall speak recently at Wordstock here in Portland, and she was passionate about not letting her Penderwick series become a movie precisely because they would age up the content and make more of the romance and more of the sisterly rivalry than the author intended. She was willing to pass up what I would assume is a substantial amount of money to defend her tender-hearted readers.

 

So dear readers, what do you think? Do you writers feel a pressure to age up your work? Do you librarians, teachers and parents find it hard to find books for your tender-hearted readers? Do you editors have trouble placing the more tender-hearted stories? Do you have a great MG title that would also work for teens? Leave your thoughts in the comments please!

 

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