YA Highway

THIS WEEK IN THE RANDOM

And in real news - OH NO!!! Lady Gaga has kidnapped Commissioner Gordon! I'm reading out about this. Aren't you? The Onion tells all!

Wait? What do you mean The Onion isn't real news? But I thought . . .

And Commissioner Gordon is a Batman character? Not a real guy? But . . . Oh, I see.

Well, Lady Gaga really is a supervillain, so all is well! (A superawesome supervillain, obvs.)

Yay! I survived my first FTF post!!! I'm so proud of myself! And hopefully no one was harmed in the making of this post . . . hopefully.

* * *

Dear Kate,

Never leave me again, please. I beg of you. I may actually die if you go away for another Friday. I think the entire world, after seeing this post, agrees.

So, again, I ask: NEVER LEAVE ME!

Love always,

Kody

Field Trip Friday: July 30

I recently was asked by the exceptional agent I’m reading for (“La Agent” hereafter) to look at a manuscript on which she had requested some revisions. She didn’t tell me what her initial thoughts were, nor what kinds of changes she’d suggested to the writer (she’s always trying to test me :P) (not really) (maybe really). So I read. There were problems and not little ones, either. I started wondering about what kind of suggestions La Agent had given but, even more so, about how much of those suggestions the writer had taken to heart.

Not until I’d sent my thoughts on the manuscript back did La Agent reveal both her notes – and the fact that the writer took three days to complete the requested changes.

It is not an impossible feat to complete revisions in three days. The line edits portion of revisions are an easy fix. It’s also not impossible to complete some revisions in three nose-to-the-grindstone day;. even larger plot-specific or character development revisions can be completed in a short period of time, though I've yet to see a successful example since I began interning.

Writers really need to get it out of their heads to do quick revisions. Maybe it's a combination of excitement that "Wow, the agent likes it!" and fear that "Oh no, if I don't do the revisions quickly the agent will forget about me!" that helps drive these fast revisions. I promise, the agent won’t forget your work. Even in a month. Even in a year. I’m not lying about this. The agent obviously saw something intriguing and that spark of interest doesn’t just peter out. If an agent takes the hours to produce insightful comments on your manuscript, there is interest on the agent's part.

After I'd read the revised manuscript, La Agent and I discussed the original vs. the revised manuscript; talked about the continued problems we were seeing; and mourned the rejection to be sent to the writer (I can’t stress enough that agents really, really want to see great work from writers, really, really want to sign writers, and really, really don’t love sending rejections). But we also aired our frustrations over writers taking a Revise and Resubmit and not doing a thorough job of it.

We know you don’t have to follow every agent suggestion. You don’t have to add everything s/he wants you to add or cut everything s/he wants you to cut. This is your story. Revisions are suggestions – but they are coming from a place of experience in reading/writing and a knowledge of what editors are seeking. So, no, you don’t have to do everything an agent asks, but please take the suggestions to heart. Here are some suggestions for completing a Revise and Resubmit.

1. Take your time. Read the suggestions. Mull them over before making actual physical changes. Mulling does not take fifteen minutes. New definition of mull: To think or ponder for a long time. Decide how the suggestions affect/change your characters, your plot, tension, motivations. Rip everything apart to the point that band-aid solutions won’t stop the bleeding. Dig deeper. Revisions are not the same as “rearranging,” nor are they the same as “slap another scene in there somewhere.”

2. Utilize beta readers. If you don’t have any, find some. Find a writer you know and trust and who likes you enough to be honest and thorough but not so much that s/he feels they have to hold something back. We all know beta comments can sting, but you will not become a better writer if you can’t take constructive criticism. Make sure your beta reader(s) understand the changes you’ve tried to implement so that they know what to look for. Give them guidelines and questions to answer.

3. Ideally, you’ve continued to mull over possible changes while your beta(s) read. If you think those changes make the manuscript better, implement them. It’s not required, but when you’re ready to send the manuscript back to the agent (in . . . a few weeks’ time? A couple months’? Those are both okay time frames), talk a little bit about the changes you made. I’d be more interested in reading a rambling e-mail from a writer detailing changes and concerns and her/his thought process than simply getting a “Here ya go!” with the new manuscript attached.

It really is okay to take your time. Beneficial, even.

At the end of this whole experience, La Agent made this comment in an e-mail to me. It’s a lightning flash/light bulb over the head kind of statement that drives home the idea that you need to take time with your R&R because, while you have "something," it isn’t there yet:

Dear Writers: If it was a simple revision, I would do it after I signed you.

(cross-post from http://www.kristindmiller.com/2010/07/i-recently-was-asked-by-exceptional.html)

How To Revise and Resubmit

Sources (and awesome pictures) are reporting that more and more meese are making their way to L.A. at this very moment.

It's bigger on the inside than it looks. Promise.

Never fear. Leila, Kody, Lee, and I will be hard at work holding down operations at the meese lodge.









While the girls will be shopping, chatting, and having a blast working hard, laboriously taking notes, and helping elderly people cross the street they'll try to pop in with some details of the conference. If not, I'm sure we can expect some great reports later next week!

In the meantime, we'll do our best to keep the blog wheels rolling.

*Tomorrow, the lovely and talented Kody, will be wrangling up your Field Trip Friday (I hear there's a lampshade involved in this process.)

So if you're not SCBWI-ing this weekend, stay tuned! 

Just keeping morale up.

Moose Spotting in LA

courtesy of ckaroli

Kristin O: So when I was stranded at the airport, I picked up this really, really fat novel...

Road Trip Wednesday: Best Book of the Month -- July

When I first started writing, simplicity was a concept I didn't really get. I assumed that if you were drafting a book, your job was to pack twists and subplots and side characters into that baby until your reader's head spun. I thought that your job was to infuse your story with obscure metaphors that caused betas to contemplate the meaning of life and the universe and everything.

Well, I was wrong.

Because when I started doing revisions for my agent, one of the first comments she had was, "We need to simplify."

I'm pretty sure I felt something short-circuit in my brain.

"What do you mean, simplify? I spent two years outlining this book and nailing down every detail of the world and creating character charts - it's not supposed to be simple. It's supposed to be deep and multi-faceted and full of symbolism!"

And this is the point when I realized why my agent was my agent and I was not. Because throughout these revisions, I began to understand that a simple storyline does not take away from the story itself.

Here's an example: I recently read a book that I really, really liked. It had wonderful characters and a gorgeous setting and a lot of awesome, intricate mythology. But after a certain point in the novel, I started to get confused. Suddenly the mythology was too intricate. There were too many characters. The gorgeous setting was getting lost under layers of excessive description. It was all just...too much. The book was rich and complicated, but the complexity took away from the heart of the story.

You can cut your character's three-page backstory without ruining the character. You can simplify the world-building without making the world crumble. You can limit yourself to a few lines of description without detracting from the beautiful setting.

Keep It Simple, Storyteller

You've done it. You've finished your manuscript and you love it so much your heart is ready to burst. It's mysterious. Coy. Full of intrigue. And heart-wrenching yet charming at the same time. You kinda want to have its babies.

And now you're going to rip it to shreds. But before we begin carving up that MS like a Christmas ham, we need to make sure we've got everything in order. So just what supplies will you need? Let's break out our... 

Revision Readiness Kit

In this Saturday series, YA Highway writers share the query letters that landed their agents -- and why the queries worked, from the agents themselves. Next up...

from Michelle:

Add me to the list of those crazies who enjoy writing queries - in fact, I usually do it before I write more than a chapter or so of the first draft. It's kind of like my guide, what I want the story to be, that keeps me focused as I write.

In this case, I had an okay query written for Frostproof when I started the first draft. About halfway through the book, I was stuck and turned back to the query. Reading through the second paragraph, the idea for organizing the ghosts according to their issues on the blog came to me, and I scribbled it down - it was in the query before it was in the book!

After I finished the first draft, a revision round, got some great beta feedback, and another revision round, I polished this up and sent it out. Unlike my first novel, which I queried unsuccessfully for a year, the process was speedy - Sarah was in my first round of agents. I queried Thursday, she requested a full on Saturday and called me on Sunday to offer representation. I'm fairly certain the baristas at my cafe thought I was having a stroke.

the query:

According to Ruth Pepperton's séance-loving stepmom Nita, every town has its ghosts – even Frostproof, Florida. But they can't tell you what they need unless you invite them. So Ruth does what any tech-savvy eighth grade girl would do: she starts a blog inviting all the Frostproof ghosts to tell her their problems.

It works better than she planned. Now Ruth is stuck with tons of weird, anonymous comments, not to mention troubled spirits messing around in the wiring of the school computers. When she misinterprets a comment and causes a humiliating accident at the Halloween dance, Ruth decides to get this spook thing under control. Organizing them is easy – Monday is for long-lost love laments, Tuesday is family drama, Wednesday and Thursday are revenge and unresolved business, and Friday is for general warnings of impending doom. (No blogging on the weekends – Ruth has a life, kind of.)

But when a few comments warn her of a serious threat to the town's upcoming Frost Festival, Ruth begins to regret getting into the spook business. Nita is trying to help, but she's having enough trouble with ghosts of her own. Now it's Ruth's turn to be the medium, and she needs to figure out what these spirits want before Frostproof's ghost population gets a dangerous increase in traffic.

I'm an associate editor for Matador Travel, an online travel magazine, and a blogger and co-founder of yaHighway.com. The first chapter is pasted below.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration!

from Sarah:

Michelle’s query immediately stood out to me because it embodies a lot of things I love in commercial middle-grade/tween fiction.

It is conceptually strong, with some very neat twists, and yet it also hits emotional notes too, which is very important. What could be more fun than a tween medium – and yet Michelle goes a step further than that, by mixing in the tech stuff too with her protagonist Ruth’s website/blog. It adds up to a contemporary spin that takes the ghostly element in new directions. Very cool, tween friendly, and, most importantly, I’d never seen it done before.

There is humour here, which is essential to this kind of fiction. You can’t help but smile when you read how Ruth is going to organize her spooks according to days of the week. It’s so cute and funny – it’s adorable! But very cleverly there’s also a sense of depth – something poignant is going on beneath the fun, conceptual exterior. We know not only that the ghosts will tell Ruth their problems, but crucially that Nita, the stepmom, has ‘ghosts of her own’. Hmm, what could those be? Immediately we are intrigued and want to read on, because we’re betting they will affect Ruth and that she will discover ghost-hunting has a strong and unexpected impact on her own life. And here lies another important truth about high-concept fiction – however clever the premise, you MUST touch the heart of the reader and make them relate to your protagonist, and that can be done even if your story is essentially light, fun and relatively fluffy.

So we have conceptual strength, humour, coolness, and potential poignancy. But that’s not all! Finally we discover that things are going to get dangerous in Frostproof – that the ghost population could grow. How? Why? Are things going to get a little dark? I think so – and that brings an element of ‘high stakes’ into the plot – another essential to the package.

I loved the freshness of this story and the careful, concise crafting of the query. I could tell this was someone with serious ambition and talent and that was confirmed when I read the sample pages. But then I could tell they would be good just from reading the submission. At the foot of Michelle’s query was a strong line of bio. She sounded interesting, industry-aware and very much in the zone of someone with a future in this area.

I picked up the phone and called her right away – and, I like to think, gave her a huge shock by immediately offering her representation.


Want to query Sarah Davies? Guidelines can be found at her agency's website.


Other installments in our query series:

• Kirsten Hubbard's query (with comments from Michelle Andelman)
  
• Lee Bross's query (with comments from Mandy Hubbard)
• Kody Keplinger's query (with comments from Joanna Stampfel-Volpe)
• Kristin Miller's query (with comments from Suzie Townsend)
• Kristin Otts's query (with comments from Michelle Andelman)
  

Query Series: Michelle Schusterman & Sarah Davies