Writing irresistible kidlit : the ultimate guide to crafting fiction for young adult and middle grade readers

267 Pages·2012·1.62 MB·English

by  Mary Kole

WRITING
IRRESISTIBLE
KIDLIT
The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction
for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers
Mary Kole
DEDICATION
To my amazing community of Kidlit blog readers, for fueling my passion
and challenging me every Monday and Wednesday.
To Liudmila Kondakova—the best mother in the world—for believing
in me, supporting me, and inspiring me to follow my heart.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As if I could live on words and dreams and a million screams,
oh, how I need a hand in mine to feel.—“ACROSS THE SEA,”
WEEZER
I often tell my clients that “It takes a village to raise a book,” but this
has new resonance for me now. I am blessed and grateful for the
wisdom, grace, and guidance of my family at the Andrea Brown Literary
Agency: Andrea Brown, Laura Rennert, Caryn Wiseman, Jen Rofé, Kelly
Sonnack, Jamie Weiss Chilton, Jennifer Laughran, Jennifer Mattson, Lara
Perkins, and Taryn Fagerness. For inspiring me to think of the future and
all the possibilities, a big thank you to my colleagues at Movable Type
Management: Jason Allen Ashlock, Adam Chromy, Jamie Brenner, and
Michele Matriciani. Thank you also to my rock star clients, who put up
with me as I wrote this book (and, if we’re being honest, long before
that, too).
Thank you to all of the writers conferences that have invited me to
speak over the years (especially the national and regional chapters of the
SCBWI and the countless dedicated volunteers and advisers there), and
to the team at Writer’s Digest and F+W Media, most notably Phil
Sexton, Chuck Sambuchino, Winter Thielen, Julie Oblander, Cory Smith,
Abby Davis, Claudean Wheeler, and Krista Rea. A special thank you to
my editor, Roseann Biederman.
This book would be missing great texture and richness if it wasn’t for
the authors and editors who contributed their wisdom: Barry Lyga, Holly
Black, Diane Landolf, Andrew Harwell, Alessandra Balzer, and Daniel
Nayeri. Much appreciation to Ellen Hopkins for the foreword, and to
Emily Hainsworth for letting me dissect her query. I also owe a great
deal to the amazing writers working in children’s books today, especially
to the thirty-four whose work I excerpted for the purposes of this guide.
My literary mentors have been beacons of inspiration for me over the
years: Lewis Buzbee and my advisers, professors, and peers at the USF
MFA program, Jennifer Chen at Rangefinder Magazine, Brian
Thorstenson, Jill Gould, and Barb Fraser at SCU, and Mark Davis at SHP.
I wouldn’t have a career in words without them.
Finally, very deep personal gratitude to my beloved friends inside and
outside publishing: Cassie Perret, Lauren Burris, Martha Flynn, Melissa
Manlove, Rosie Wells, John Cusick, Joanna Volpe, Jamie Harrington,
Lindsay Ward, Bethanie Murguia, Kyle Murphy, Sandra Andersch, Todd
Macdonald, Sarah Bridgins, T.S. Ferguson, Yasmin Vahdatpour, Joe
O’Malley, Manfred Hayes, Gordon Warnock, Viva Chu, Colleen Grapes,
Heather Alexander, Carol Lynch Williams, Jo Whittemore, Dustin
Hansen, and Josh Rector. Thank you also to my father, Mikhail
Kolesnikov, and my step-father, Jamie Davis. Y’all know me—and you
love me anyway! This book is truly a dream come true.
Table of Contents
Foreward
CHAPTER 1:
Kidlit Market Overview
The middle grade and young adult fiction markets are rapidly
changing, and kidlit writers face many new challenges.
Understanding your readers is paramount to your book’s success. In
this chapter, you’ll learn about the reading habits, age ranges, and
expectations of your all-important audience, as well as the changes
and opportunities that abound in this new kidlit marketplace.
• YOUR READERS
• KIDLIT THEN …
• … AND KIDLIT NOW
• BLOCKBUSTER THINKING
• THE POPULARITY OF SERIES
• CHANGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
• CHOOSING AN AUDIENCE
• THE MIDDLE GRADE MARKETPLACE
• THE YOUNG ADULT MARKETPLACE
• UNDERSTANDING YOUR READER
CHAPTER 2:
The MG and YA Mindset
To write kidlit, you must be willing to walk in the shoes of your
middle grade and young adult readers. What issues will resonate
with middle graders? What themes, characters, and plots will keep
young adults glued to your pages? What genres are particularly
popular, and what pitfalls should you avoid? Get inside the minds
of your audience in this chapter.
• INSIDE THE MIND OF YOUR MIDDLE GRADE READER
• INSIDE THE MIND OF YOUR YOUNG ADULT READER
CHAPTER 3:
What’s the Big Idea?
All great fiction starts with a single great idea. Is your idea big
enough to sustain a novel? Is it a fresh take on a familiar story?
Does it have commercial appeal and an immediately apparent sales
hook? What Big Ideas and Big Questions do you want to explore? In
this chapter, I discuss ideas in the context of middle grade and
young adult fiction.
• ORIGINALITY AND NEW IDEAS
• DEFINING COMMERCIAL NOVELS
• LOGLINES FROM THE SHELVES
• HOW I’VE BEEN BAITED
• THINKING BIG
CHAPTER 4:
Storytelling Foundations
Don’t underestimate the importance of your novel’s beginning.
From prologues (should you write one or not?) to inciting incidents,
we begin our discussion on storytelling foundations with what your
beginning must accomplish.
Once you’ve established a killer beginning, your task becomes
one of keeping your readers invested in your story. Writing kidlit is
a balancing act of including the right mix of action and
information, wielding character interiority to your advantage, and
avoiding the dreaded Info Dump. We discuss all of these aspects of
writing craft in this chapter.
• STARTING A STORY
• BALANCING ACTION AND INFORMATION
• TENSE AND POV
CHAPTER 5:
Character
What makes characters like Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen so
darned memorable? It’s because we, as readers, really care about
them. For your young adult readers to be equally invested in your
characters, you must develop protagonists with understandable
motivations, relevant backstories, and believable emotions. To
make readers care, protagonists must be put through the wringer,
and be better/wiser/sadder/different because of it.
When developing characters, don’t neglect your secondary
characters, lest you end up with cookie-cutter sidekicks or
mustachoied, ne’er-do-well villains. Your novel’s success hinges on
developing all your characters as fully as you are able. We’ll delve
into ways you can do just that in this chapter.
• THE HERO’S JOURNEY AND INTRODUCING A CHARACTER
• MAKE ME CARE: CHARACTER OBJECTIVE AND CONFLICT
• SIDEKICKS AND VILLAINS AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN
• CHAPTERS, SCENES, AND BEATS
• CHARACTER GROWTH AND CHANGE
CHAPTER 6:
Plot
Let’s face it: the attention span of your audience is particularly
short, what with all the competition from television, the Internet,
music, and text messaging. Your challenge, then, is to create a
riveting plot that will keep kids glued to the pages of your book,
rather than succumbing to a video game. While crafting a dynamite
premise (see Chapter 3) and fully fleshed-out characters (see
Chapter 5) will aid in this endeavor, you still need to develop an
electric plot architecture to keep your readers interested.
In this chapter, we’ll explore and compare different ways to
structure plots, and then journey, step by step, through the inciting
incident, rise, fall, climax, and evening out of your protagonist’s
path. Along the way, we’ll discuss the importance of weaving
tension into key points in your plot, as well as solutions for fixing
the infamous Muddy Middle.
• A LESSON IN PLOT STRUCTURE
• DEVELOPING STAKES AND TENSION
• USING BACKSTORY AND WITHHOLDING
• SUBPLOTS AND THE MUDDY MIDDLE
• THE CLIMAX AND ENDING
CHAPTER 7:
Advanced Kidlit
Don’t be thrown off by the word “advanced.” Even beginning kidlit
writers can and should incorporate imagery, setting, voice, and
theme in their novel. Don’t be fooled by the notion that kidlit is just
“adult books lite”; the writing tools presented in this chapter will
give you the ability to take your kidlit novel to the next level.
We’ll talk about using effective imagery that incorporates all five
senses and creating a setting rich in imagery and theme. We’ll also
discuss how to harness and develop your voice as a writer by
making specific choices in syntax, rhythm, and mood. Finally, we’ll
dive into the development of theme-what do you really want to say
in your kidlit novel, and how do you accomplish it?
• IMAGERY AND SETTING
• WORD CHOICE AND VOICE
• THEME, BIG IDEAS, AND BIG QUESTIONS
• AUTHORITY AND AUTHENTICITY
CHAPTER 8:
A Career in Kidlit
Congratulations: you’ve read the previous chapters in this book, and
you’re now (hopefully) hard at work writing an irresistible kidlit
novel. So now what? This chapter contains the practical advice and
information you need to develop a career in kidlit. Don’t know how
to get an agent? I cover that here. Nervous about submitting? I’ve
provided an in-depth submissions checklist to go over before you
do. Haven’t the slightest about how to write a query letter? I break
down an actual sample query letter for you to peruse. If you’re
serious about writing for middle graders and young adults, don’t
skip this chapter.
• GETTING A LITERARY AGENT
• QUERYING AND SUBMITTING YOUR WORK
CHAPTER 9:
Conclusion