Just got back from Writer's Day in San Gabriel, put on by the Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators (SCBWI) L.A. region. Much of the advice can be applied to any writing genre, so I though I'd share.

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Michael Stearns gave a presentation called "The Plot Thickens: 13 Questions to Ask of a Way Too Wimpy Storyline." Mr. Stearns is a former editor and current literary agent at Firebrand Literary.

Plot should be about complications and folllow-through on those complications. This list is not a checklist of what should be in your story, but rather questions to ask if your plot is weak.

1.) Do you have a clock in your story? Do you have a countdown? This can be literal (like in 24, with a time display) or metaphorical (a sense of urgency).

2.) Have you buried the ends of your chapters? Put cliffhangers at the end of chapters! Don't wrap a chapter up in a nice, neat bow--you want to keep the reader turning the page. Try alternating when you solve the problems posed--if you ask a question in chapter 1, answer it in chapter 3; if you ask a question in chapter 2, answer it in chapter 4; and so on.

3.) Have you structured your story to create false suspense?

4.) Have you hidden the "why"? Concealment; don't tell the audience everything--characters will then have to take action not knowing everything. Snape is a good example--there are many questions surrounding Snape that aren't answered until book 7, and in books 1-6 and most of 7, Harry Potter takes deliberate action based on his own assumptions about Snape, which often complicates matters.

5.) Have you taken full advantage of subplots? Subplots can obscure the main plot, and distract attention from the setup needed in the main plot.

6.) Do you have something pulling your main character forward? What does the character WANT (an EXTERNAL desire)?

7.) Do you have something pulling your main character forward? What does the character NEED (an INTERNAL desire)?

8.) Do you have something pushing / pursuing your main character (an EXTERNAL force)?

9.) Do you have something pushing / pursuing your main character (an INTERNAL force)?

10.) Have you taken advantage of everybody but everybody lies? Nobody tells the truth about themselves. Denial about the lies creates complications, and reveals of lies "make Pollyanna look like a crack whore" (that's what Mr. Stearns said word-for-word).

11.) Have you applied the five previous questions to minor characters? People think only of themselves, including minor characters.

12.) Have you followed through on every consequence of your characters' acts?

13.) Have you been as mean as possible to you characters?

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David Gale gave a lecture called "Books for Teens: Where We've Been, Where We're Going." Mr. Gale is vice president, editorial director of Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, which includes everything from picture books to teenagers.

STILL SELLING:
Vampires
Werewolves
Dragons
Chick lit
Graphic novels are huge
Verse works are big but can't sustain more authors
Looking for minority authors for minority teens

LOOKING FOR:
Manuscript needs to be fresh and exciting
Voice--need to trust the voice of the work
Books need a "core of psychological truth."
Honesty of the characters
All taboos (sex, drugs, etc) are possible but authors need to realize it will limit sales to schools, libraries, and older age groups (14- to 25-year-olds)

UP AND COMING POPULARITY:
Paranormal Romance
Steampunk will be huge
Horror will grow
Graphic novels will grow
Edgier books with wider range of protagonists, such as gay and transgender

A few notes from SCBWI southern California's Writer's Day at California Lutheran University.

For the "First Pages" event, where you could submit your first page and a number of them would be randomly selected to be read aloud, Meredith Wasinger, a senior editor at Sterling Publishing, and Jamie Chilton, an associate agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency, were kind enough to give their opinion on the first pages read aloud.

In the first page of a manuscript...

• You should be able to tell where the plot is going
• There should be feeling and emotion
• Dialogue--no dialogue often (but not always) indicates a passive character
• Use specific little details; use details to show where the character is (part of the show, don't tell, rule)
• There should be voice, details, character development
• There should be a vivid sense of place (see two bullet points up about "details")
• Don't talk down to the reader--trust the reader to "get it".  You don't need to spell it out.

Some notes about picture books (which I don't write, but others might find interesting), also taken from the "First Pages" event:

• There's hesitation to take on rhyming picture books--it has to be really well done.
• Rhyming can box in a writer--an 800 word rhyming picture book is far too long--400 words or less is ideal.
• There's been success with shorter picture books.
• A cover letter for a picture book is an opportunity to describe your vision of the book if you have an idea.  Leave description of place and setting out of the story--it's where the artwork will come in.

Now if you excuse me, I have two essays to write, a German midterm to study for, and a short story to finish.

The most useful advice (to me) and what I took from it:

• From Laura Rennert:
  • Commercial conception
  • High-concept
  • FOR MY PART: attempting to simplify my plot down to one or two sentences was hard, but it helped me realize a few things.  I was focusing on too many character and little subplots and was missing the big picture.  Not only was I doing this in my pitch/query letter, I have been doing it in my story.  By working on a one-sentence pitch (as wordy as it is), I was able to focus to the core of what my novel needs to be about and I will be making changes there.
• From Linda Zuckerman:
  • Plot: action / external
  • Plot: emotion / internal
  • FOR MY PART: I knew there were flaws in my plot, but I hadn't realized until I went to Ms. Zuckerman's workshop what the problem was.  She pointed out that, often the flaws with plots is that they have the action of the motivator, but if there is not emotional involvement on the character's part, the reader doesn't get invested.  The emotional plot, often considered the be the sub-plot, get less development and so the plot falls flat.  The emotional plot is ALWAYS the main plot, and the action plot develops from the emotional plot.  Essentially, the characters react to their emotions, making emotions the catalyst.
  • While I initially had an emotional event as the beginning, my character's subsequent emotions do not develop correctly--the actions took over.  As a result, my plot was flimsy at best and my main character did not have an emotional arc.
• From Bruce Coville:
  • create a sense of the numinous (rule #7)
  • FOR MY PART: I had grasped this, but only just.

This is not to say that this is the only advice I found helpful--all of it was gems that have already helped me.  But those listed above are the most important that relate directly to my novel, and has helped me figure out the problems that my subconscious has known were wrong, but not my conscious.

My camera couldn't take a good picture, so many of these are blurry.

Here are some miscellaneous notings from the summer conference--I either hardly took notes because it was stuff that I already knew, stuff that didn't apply to my writing, or I was enjoying myself too much.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: editor Nancy Conescu

• Middle Grade examples:
• The Mysterious Benedict Society
• Vampirate series
• Cressida Cowl
• "cleaner" MG--not The Clique
• Young Adult examples:
• looking for different from what they have (no Twilight)
• willing to do edgier YA
• Ghost Girl
• looking for mainstream appeal
• doesn't do more traditional fantasy--wants paranormal, urban, or some sort of contemporary fantasy

Margaret Peterson Haddix, author

• Think deeply about character motivation and what makes them dig in

Today in Children's Publishing: senior editors

• Elizabeth Law with Edgmont Books
• building list
• MG and YA
• no unsolicited mss right now, but will open up in future
• David Gale of Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
  
• schools and libraries are secondary considerations for them when publishing novels
• loves teen books
• always looking for MG, preferably for boys
• Debra Dorfmann of Scholastic
• paperback series

Krista Marino of Delacorte

• Three groupings of children's imprints under Random House:
• Random House Children's
• Tamora Pierce
• Schwartz and Wade
• Picture books
• Middle Grade
• Knopf and Delacorte
• Knopf publishes Pullman, Paolini
• Delacorte publishes middle grade and young adult
• three lists: spring, summer, fall
• publishes 175 titles a year

Emerging Editorial Voices

• Gretchen Hirsch of HarperCollins Children's Books:
• dogs are the hot new trend
• mainly YA
• smart and sexy
• smart chick lit, paranormal YA
• plot and structure over voice; page turners
• HarperCollins is growing picture books
• Amalia Ellison of Amulet Books at Harry N. Abrams:
• eclectic / commercial
• smart chick lit, paranormal YA
• plot and structure over voice; page turners
• would like to have published Twilight, Goose Girl, ultimately just something good
• well-crafted plot
• SIDE NOTE: one woman who saw Ms. Ellison speak at a workshop I didn't attend noted that Ellison loves traditional fantasy but that she sees far to many stories with paragraphs of worldbuilding that slow the story down.
• Namrata Tripathi at Hyperion Books for Children and Jump at the Sun:
• eclectic / literary
• would like to have published Clementine, John Green
• wants voice over plot (but there, of course, has to be plot)
• Nancy Conescu at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers:
• wants story that is ultimately hopeful
• voice over plot
• strong voice like Clementine
• specific request: she wants to see a YA novel about living in a cult

Steven Malk is a west-coast agent with Writers House, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, literary agencies.  He represents everything from picture books to young adult, and gave two workshops at the conference.


FRIDAY'S WORKSHOP: "Career Management 101: Strategies for Long-Term Success."

Highlights:

• Slow down and be patient
• Become an expert in your field
• Don't dabble--you have to go all the way in.  It's a business, not a hobby.
• Have a career model
• do you want to publish a book every year, 18 months, etc?
  How much publicity are you willing / can you do?
• Which authors do you admire?  With the exception of Rowling and Meyer, model yourself after their career path.
• Take ownership over your career--take it seriously.  Each decision you make has consequences.
• Understand the market and where you fit into it
• Don't over extend yourself--the quality of your work will suffer
• Be flexible and have a good attitude
• If at first you don't succeed, don't abandon ship
• Don't toss your career plan out the window.  You may have to tweak it a bit, but don't throw it away.
• Slow but steady wins the race
• Enjoy the ride--good things will happen

Mr. Malk noted that, while he's not closed to submissions, these agents at Writers House are more actively acquiring:

• Lindsay Davis
• Rebecca Sherman
• Dan Lazar
• Ken Wright

Laura Rennert is a senior agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency. "Her recent and major deals include a middle-grade/YA series she sold to Random House for over half a million dollars; two six-figure deals for works of literary fiction to Doubleday; six-figure YA deals to Razorbill, Knopf, Feiwel & Friends, and Simon & Schuster; and a film deal to Nickelodeon/Paramount." (andreabrownlit.com)


MONDAY'S WORKSHOP: "From Audition to Auction: A Literary Agent Tells All"

Highlights:

• Middle grade, Young Adult are the genres that typically go to auction.  Picture books sometimes do, but it is rare.  The book has to be commercial in some way.
• Auction: bidding with an affixed closing date
• Pre-emptive: early, big offer meant to take project off the table
• Best-offer auction: single closing date; editors won't know each other's bids or offers, and won't be able to keep raising the stakes.  Ms. Rennert doesn't do this type
• Round auction: several closing dates where editors attempt to outbid each other
  
• The first offer of an auction is usually a pre-empt
• Ground rules:
1. define rights offered (world rights are the biggest offer--i.e. publishing in different languages)
   
2. Ms. Rennert likes to hold film, television, performance, merchandise rights for the client, and more often she also holds audio
3. From the editors she wants to know the advance, the payout schedule, royalty rates, escalations (when royalties go up after a certain number of copies sold), percentage of subsidiary, and bonuses (i.e. more money for awards, bestseller list placement, but are still against royalties)
4. KEY: "I want to see marketing plans."  Most important/advantageous to her and author.  Marketing plans won't be a contractual commitment--if an author doesn't go to auction, she is guaranteed very little marketing.  She's looking for: lots of review copies, pre-buzz events like dinners with buyers, meeting the team, online presence, presence in publications.
5. Sets initial auction date.  She reserves right to go a certain number of rounds, and the right to accept author's choice despite the highest advance offered (marketing usually factors in)
• She doesn't squeeze every last drop from editors--she wants everyone to feel good and for author to deliver according to expectations (which is how book will perform, not delivering on the due date).
• What she is looking for her terms of stories: literary voice, fresh voice, commercial conception
• Definition of commercial:
• playing for stakes (ante, characters through unbelievable obstacles, feels she really knows character)
• Evokes powerful emotions
• premise--really intriguing, compelling "What if?"
• unusual angle or action
• High-concept: the more a story can be reduced to one or two sentences.  Books can take two to four sentences, but the shorter the better.  Look at Publisher's Weekly deals for examples.
• Trends in market
• Authors who (will) have visibility
• She gives editors fulls, not partials

One note:

I asked her a question about the state of fantasy today, since it is flooded with paranormal fantasy and urban fantasy, in that order (and at least two speakers commented that the vampire fad is giving way to the werewolf fad, and Ms. Rennert made a large deal surrounded werewolves).

I asked her about how more traditional fantasy is viewed today, especially considering that, even though some novels may quality as "commercial" and "high-concept," there doesn't seem to be much of a market beyond the authors already established.  She noted that, on her part, she will accept any fantasy, but in the case of traditional there has to be something extraordinary about it that hasn't been done before.

Linda Zuckerman has a 40-year career as an editor.  She started off at Viking where she became head of the children's department, and then headed to the west coast and worked as executive editor for HarperCollins.  She then joined Harcourt with Browndeer Press (her own imprint).  She edited three books that won the Caldecott medal, and two that received Newbery Honor citations.  She has now published two books of her own.

SUNDAY'S WORKSHOP: "The Edge of the Cliff: Writing Your First Novel"

Highlights:

• anger is a great motivator--characters act, and they act rashly
• Depression is not a great motivator
• Use character ticks, traits, but don't overuse (biting nails, tapping pen, habits like that)
• use senses, character opinions
• ask the reader what she wants, then create obstacles so that they don't get it.  Use it at any level, down to not giving them an umbrella when it's pouring.
• character solve problems by being who they are
• action/external--creates ways to solve main plot
  emotion/internal--ALWAYS the main plot.
• This is what drives the story, and is what must be solved last

I had the honor of hearing Bruce Coville, author of many novels for children, speak twice at the conference.  The first was as a keynote speaker on Friday, August 1st, and all I can really say is that he is hilarious.  He has this dynamic about him that livens the whole speech.  He uses all of his body and moves around stage a lot.  Even if you didn't like his books, or read his books, it is an absolute treat to watch him speak.



FRIDAY'S SPEECH: "The Art of the Heart: Writing True for the Child"

Highlights:

• writing is a quiet way of going "Look at me!"
• kids need heroes nowadays
• they used to be productive members of society, even as children, but now they are giving, not taking
• Bruce Coville's Seven Deadly Sins for Writers
• Dullness--don't spend three pages clearing your throat
• Repetition--don't copy the fads
• Cliche--don't take the easy road
• Sloth--don't be lazy in your writing; give editors and readers more than they expect ("sloth is the sin for writers")
• Inattention--no character moves in isolation; think of all of the consequences
• Perfection--throttles creativity, stops us in our tracks; creates fear that stops us
• Clumsiness--lack of craft; master your tool

SUNDAY'S WORKSHOP: "Writing Fantasy: The Nuts and Bolts Behind the Curtain"

HIghlights:

• Fantasy has a sense of longing, wonder
• Life is about dreams--honored or denying, cultivated or destroyed
• Big dreams, ideas, ideals
• Honor
• C.S. Lewis: "we use fairy tales to tell the truth"
• the jailers of the world have a heard time with escapist lit
• because it liberates the human spirit
• fantasy liberates
• Roots in mythology
• 1st two fantasy books were the Iliad and the Odyssey (they were also the first series)
• Dante
• Shakespeare--Midsummer, Tempest
• World is too small for the heart of a ten-year-old
• "Lost world" adventures, like Doyle's, no longer apply because there are no more hidden areas on earth (i.e. finding a plateau with dinosaurs)
• Fantasy--heart, past
  Sci Fi--head, future
• Re-enchantment
• SIDE NOTE: everyone identifies with bullying
• Magical formula of three plus one
• 3 bears and goldilocks
• 3 pigs and the wolf
• write the book you wanted when you were a child, or still want
• There is always an old helper (fairy godmother, Gandalf, etc) whose advice you'll ignore and pay the consequences
• PLOT: What do you want?  NO, what do you need?
• Kids want a reason, purpose
• PLOT: Strictures--if they're told not to do it, they're going to do it (like with the old helper)
• KID-SPECIFIC: Cussing is always funny.  Top five words are fart, booger, naked, butt, underwear
• There is a boy energy, a girl energy, and a relationship of both

Rules for Fantasy:

1. Your world must be consistent
1. Magic(ians) must have rules, strictures, limitations
2. if everything is possible, kids won't read it
3. What is the price of magic?
2. Humor is always welcome
1. Lets you build the spell effectively
2. Wisecrack
3. If you start at the beginning, you can only go up so far in terms of tension.  Allowing laughs lowers the tension again, but not back to the original starting point.  You can now build up again farther than before.  This can be repeated.
3. Do your research
1. Read myths, legends, old material, source material
4. Sidekicks are characters' friends as well as yours
1. Kill them off for ultimate effect
5. Start at home and then move them
6. Maintain a sense of mystery
7. Strive for a sense of the numinous
   The sacred being around you
   Sense of larger, wider, more beautiful
8. Master the art of naming

Days til SCBWI L.A. conference--10 days



To do:

• finish Chapter 10
• finish Chapter 12 (chapter 11 and 12 combined)
• finish Chapter 14
• finish Chapter 15
• finish Chapter 16
• finish Chapter 18
• edit Chapter 1
• Revise

!!!

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