For those of us who celebrate, tonight is a night to
encounter all things spooky and terrifying. Oh, sure, there’s the fun stuff
like parties and apple bobbing and corn mazes and YA Highway pumpkin carving contests, but Halloween is also a time to face our fears: to enjoy being
scared.
See, what’s great about Halloween is also the best thing
about scary books and scary movies. When and where else can you go up against
giant spiders and were-turkeys and ventriloquist dummies* and bad candy and
live to tell about it?
But what makes a story frightening? For writers, that’s an
interesting question to ponder. Perhaps the better question is what scares you? Is it perceived risk? The fear of dying? The fear
of the unknown? The fear of helplessness? The fear of oneself?
For me personally, I’ve always connected to this statement
by Koji Suzuki, author of RING (which became the Japanese film, Ringu, and then The Ring when it was made in the States).
“Everyone has a different thing that really scares him.
For me, it's not ghosts or the occult--I don't believe in ghosts or spirits.
For me, losing someone that you love is the scariest thing.”
So for your Halloween enjoyment, here’s a list of frightening
YA books, from the gothic to the demonic to the psychological to the, well, just
pure evil.
Marcus Sedgwick’s WHITE CROW
Dia Reeves’s SLICE OF CHERRY
Andrew Smith’s THE MARBURY LENS
Gretchen McNeil’s POSSESS
Lisa McMann’s CRYER’S CROSS
Michael Ford’s THE POISONED HOUSE
Did I miss your favorite? I'm sure I did. Put it in the comments and let me know. And tonight, after you've had your fill of Dum Dums and
candy corn, go pick up a scary book, keep the lights on, and enjoy…
*By the way, R.L. Stine’s Slappy notwithstanding, I feel the
YA world is ripe for a good ventriloquist dummy story. Can someone please make
that happen? Please???
Earlier this month, I attended the Viable Paradise Workshop on Martha's Vineyard. Surrounded by talented writers, both published and unpublished, I learned a ton, from the history of the mass market paperback, to how to conceptualize and pitch a story in ten minutes.
But most interesting were the actual workshop sessions. I've been in plenty of workshops before, from high school creative writing courses to online critique groups to graduate poetry workshops. But over time, my attitude toward the advice I've gotten in these workshops has evolved.
In my first workshops, I found it more helpful to listen to workshop leaders--teachers or instructors--than the other students. It was easiest to parse their advice. Often, teachers (who are more practiced at giving feedback) are able to treat a young writer a little more gently, coaxing them to come around to see their point of view. They're also an obvious authority. When you're a young writer, it's easier to demur to an instructor's clear experience rather than to try and sort out the "good" feedback from the "bad" among your peers.
Later, I came to feel more open to hearing feedback from other writers. However, I was careful about the sort of advice I'd take. "Be a filter," I came to say, "not a sponge." At this stage, I was sure that I could strain out the useful stuff and leave the rest behind. I figured that if some piece of criticism didn't ring true to me as a writer, then I could just discard it. What would be the use of wasting any time with advice that you don't like?
But at Viable Paradise, I found that my perspective on workshop feedback had shifted yet again. I no longer sorted my peers' advice into "good" and "bad." Instead, I found myself listening closely to what everyone had to say. A funny thing happens when you stop and listen to a critique, rather than reacting defensively to it. You begin to be able to read other things in your peers' writing advice. For example, genre preferences became clear. If someone talks about how creepy and unsettling they found a story, and how it upset them, you learn something not just about this particular story but about their feelings on creepy, unsettling writing generally. You also learn about their individual tastes as readers; a writer who favors an active hero might always be frustrated by a passive protagonist.
Armed with this information, I realized I could do something with this critique feedback that I've never been able to before. I could play with reader expectations, skewering genre tropes, emphasizing elements in order to create certain reader expectations, and then deflect them. Back when I was a high school student, I never would have been able to manipulate layers of meaning or intention in quite the same way. Then, it was easier to just do what my teacher told me, and ignore everything else. But as my confidence in my own ability to write has grown, so has my ability to take criticism--and to see how it has more applications than just "fixing your story."
So the next time you're in a critique situation, consider not just listening in with the hope that you'll be able to correct problems in your story--instead, open your ears to the unique insight a reader gives into their own reading life. With this knowledge in hand, you can make your writing less a monologue (even a polished one) and more of a dialogue between the writer, and the reader.
"I don't believe all reviewers want to see
women characters over-sexualised and treated as nothing more than
unthreatening eye candy. But what I do believe is that this bombardment
of EmptySexyHotObject images has made it hard for us to see women AS
ANYTHING ELSE. Which is why when female writers produce female characters with depth and agency, they get accused of wish fulfillment."
- Writer Tracey Neithercott is working on a magazine article
about people over the age of 50 who read YA. She’s looking to interview someone
between the ages of 50 and 60 as well as someone age 70 or older for the
article. If you fit the description and want to talk about why you read YA (or if
you know someone who does) you can email her at
tracey.neithercott(at)gmail(dot)com. She’s hoping to conduct interviews next
week.
- Don't forget to enter our pumpkin carving contest! If you need help, I created free templates that you can download here; Novel Novice has Twilight-specific patterns here, and if you go with a Hunger Games theme, be sure to enter Mockingjay.net's contest too!
Currently, I live in an apartment with two actresses who are studying the Meisner method. Now, while this often provides much hilarity on my part (coming home to find my roommate snorting a line of sweetener off the table because her current character is a coke addict, for example) it has also made me think quite a bit about drama and theater. The thing is, I've always loved to act. I did plays in middle school, high school, and college, but until recently, I'd always seen acting and writing as two very different, very separate art forms.
But really, they're not that different when you get down to the core of it.
An acting teacher once told me that writers should act and actors should write. She said that the two go hand in hand. That sounds strange, doesn't it? Writing is a solitary exercise, something most people do alone, while acting involves being seen. Writing involves putting words on paper, while acting involves getting the words out of your mouth.
But then, when you think about it, both art forms are about people. Actors slip into a part, they become another person on stage and it's their job to make it real. And writers slip into a character, trying to convey a realistic, honest voice, developing the thought process and the backstory and the personality of a fictional person that needs to feel real to a reader. When you look at it that way, the two aren't that different at all.
I told you what that teacher said already, about writers needing to act and actors needing to write. Well, now that I get the similarity, I agree with her. So I've added a new piece of writing advice to my list. I think writers should experiment with theater.
Now, I'm not saying every aspiring writer should go out and audition for a Broadway show. As I said, writing is solitary, and some writers prefer to be alone, avoiding an audience at all costs, but there are ways to play with drama and acting that don't necessarily involve becoming the next big starlet. So below I've made a list of three acting exercises you can do to improve your character development.
1. A Day In the Life: For a whole day, preferably a day when you don't have too many social engagements, become your character. Call yourself by their name as opposed to yours. Eat foods they'd eat. Go places they'd go. Behave as if they'd behave. We did something similar to this in an acting class I took last year. We were required to introduce ourselves to strangers as a fake name, to embody this character. If you can do that with your own character for a whole day - maybe even just for a few hours - you might be surprised what you learn about them. How they walk, how they talk, the decisions they'd make. You may learn something new about them even!
2. Improv: Improvisation is a great way to play with character. If you can, take an improv class or join an improv group. Heck, you can even get a group of friends together and do some improv games (there are plenty online!). Step into spontaneous scenes as characters from your writing - both the major and the minor - and explore their reactions to different circumstances. Remember, improv doesn't have to be funny. Just focus on being in the moment and believable. What better way to get to know a character than to figure out what they'd do in a variety of situations?
3. Have a Reading: Are you working on a tricky, dialogue heavy scene? It could be a fun idea to turn the dialogue into a script of sorts and have friends help you stage a private reading of the scene. Reading it like a play and hearing others recite the lines might help you iron out the kinks in the wording. Or if you don't want friends to see, read each piece of dialogue to yourself. Be sure to do it out loud, int he same emotion your character would use. This way you can see whether or not the dialogue sounds natural. Good playwrights have some of the best, most natural dialogue. Why shouldn't your novel have the same?
See? Nothing too drastic! You don't have to be an Oscar winner, but playing around with theatrical techniques and acting exercises could truly be a great experience and an opportunity to get to know your character, helping you to make them as three-dimensional as possible.
Carve, paint, decorate or otherwise create a YA-themed pumpkin. Leave a link to your post or image in the comments of this post by midnight on Halloween night to win...
Winners will be announced with next week's Road Trip Wednesday (Nov 2).
Tweets and posts about the contest are not required but are always
appreciated.
Need some help? The internet is full of free patterns, and here are a few tutorials if you are design software savvy. And if you'd like to feature a YA Highway author...
(They totally don't know I made these. You can click the image to see and save a bigger version, or watch for tweets tomorrow to download a PDF version.)
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link -- or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.
I've noticed a recurring, and interesting pattern lately on a couple of forum boards that I frequent.
YA writers who post questions like, "Is this believable?" in relation to how teenage characters are acting, talking, interacting, or, "Can my characters fall in love in a week?"
The questions themselves aren't really the interesting part, it's the answers that make me wonder. If you show teenagers being irresponsible and stupid, whether it's drugs, sex, love or general behavior, a lot of people will chime in that you really shouldn't do that or that's not how teenagers really act.
But the thing is, being a *coff* over 37 *coff* writer of YA, I am pretty removed from my high school days. I have conveniently forgotten my stupider moments and find my characters make more mature decisions based on what I know now, not on how I was them.
Because let me tell you, I did some pretty dumb things when I was 16. Things I would kill my own kids for doing. Things that could have killed me. Looking back as a mom, it makes my stomach hurt, but back then, I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted and the hell with everyone else. In other words, I was the typical rebellious teenager.
And love. Pffft. People will say, "Don't have love at first sight in your book, its so cliche." But you know what? I remember my first real love and OMG it was intense and dramatic and heart breaking. I ate, slept and dreampt about this guy. I drew his name in hearts in my notebook and told all my friends he was "the one." I would stare at him in study hall all dreamy eyed then turn red if he looked my way. And he ended up breaking my heart and it was the most devastating moment of my life that far.
I remember crushing on guys from afar based on their looks alone. Then losing interest and the next week, moving on to someone new. Some friends changed boyfriends like people change their underwear. They slept with a guy for love, for practice, or just because they wanted to. They gave in to peer pressure or they didn't. Some drank, some smoked pot, some did other things. Some worked hard to get into college and others slacked off because they didn't care.
The thing is, our teenage years are all about intense emotion and stupid choices. In other words, finding out who you really are. For me, I realized how much I had forgotten when I closed my eyes and put myself back in high school, walking the halls with my friends, and really thought about it. It brought back a lot of memories, good and bad, but it also made me realize how I tend to shelter my characters from the "real world."
So my question to you is: Do we tend to gloss over the bad parts as adults writing YA, maybe not even intentionally, but because we have the advantage of wisdom and maturity? Do you think it clouds your perception at all?
disclaimer: I know there were some teenagers who were responsible and mature as 14 year olds, but for the sake of this post, I am drawing on my own teenage-hood memories, and I was definitely not! (Let me just add how grateful I am that there is no cell phone, Facebook or internet evidence of it out there either!)
As of last night, I have made out with Ron Weasley. YES.
Okay, so it wasn't really him (if he "really" exists somewhere). I totally knew it wasn't him. But what are you gonna do when you're hanging out in a Hogwarts Schoolgrounds-esque setting, and you've already gone jumping off cliffs and flying, and an extremely cute Ron walks up to you and is like, "Hey"? Start making out wildly, duh. There were people in the area, so he even conjured a private little makeshift house for us!
I'd say "I wish I was making this up," except I did. It all happened during a lucid dream.
Have you ever had one of those? For some people they come naturally, but for most, it takes either lots of effort or lots of luck (or both) to make them happen. Basically, a lucid dream occurs when a dreamer realizes they're dreaming. Think Inception, but without any of the hair-raising plot.
One minute you're giving a presentation to all of your past exes in your 10th grade Chemistry class, and the next minute you're thinking, "Wait, I graduated from high school already! And none of you ever cared about science. This is a dream." If you're able to stay solidly lucid (which can be super hard), you can do whatever you want: strip naked, walk out the door and go to Egypt, practice levitating, canoodle with a certain redheaded boy... the possibilities are endless.
Dear Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I have my eye on Dream You.
Kind of like with writing!
If you frame it from an artist's perspective, lucid dreaming is probably one of the most awesome things ever. Why? Because it represents the human imagination, unlocked. Writing is more than wonderful, but there's still the matter of translating all those great thoughts you're having onto paper. (Ever thought to yourself, "I wish I could write this book the way I imagine it?") Scriptwriting, comic book drawing, even composing, etc.: all these crafts attempt to do what lucid dreaming does instantly - create a real-seeming world, filled with real-seeming characters, that makes the senses and emotions go "wow!" and the brain go "hmmm."
Next time I lucid dream (which might not be for a while), I want to see if I can meet the characters from my current WIP, maybe by transporting myself to the fictional town where they live. My conscious brain thinks it has them down, but there's something about "talking to your subconscious" (to steal a term from Inception) that can reveal things you didn't realize you were hiding from yourself. Like a secret desire to make out with Ron Weasley... or maybe a whole new plot development!
With that, I say go forth and lucid dream. It does take practice to get down, but it's really fun - and this is a great webpage to get you started if you're interested. The human imagination is a seriously amazing thing, so why not spend the idle hours of the night unlocking it? What has been your past experience with lucid dreaming? Any cool stories?
Some books are intensely tied into current pop culture. They flash brand names, refer to the hottest techno-toys, name-drop celebrities like mad. Other books include pop culture more peripherally, like referring to bands or websites. However, I try to avoid pop culture in my books as much as possible, if I can help it.
Here's my line of thinking. If we're lucky, the books we finish today will be published approximately two years after they're sold. Trends change fast – that fast, even. Even if they're still somewhat current when the book debuts, a year or two afterward, they'll almost certainly feel stale, if not totally out of touch.
I mean, just a few years ago, iPhones didn't exist. Twitter was a twinkle in a bird's eye. MySpace used to be everyone's gathering place, but it fell from grace faster than anyone could have predicted. It's been all about Facebook for the past few years, but what about Google Plus? Tumblr versus Blogger? Anybody remember LiveJournal?
The same goes for celebrities. A few years ago, Tom Cruise was Chief of the Crazies, but he's been replaced by Charlie Sheen – and even that bout of lunacy feels like old news. For a long while, Britney's antics dominated headlines, but they've since been superseded by Paris's, then by Lindsey's, and now Snooki's, and next, who knows. Hopefully not yours or mine.
(Slang is another ephemeral beast that surely deserves its own post.)
Pop culture and technology move fast. Incredibly fast – but in such a way that you don't really see them changing, until you look back a year or so down the line. It's hard enough to write for teens as an adult, especially books grounded in a present-day, high school atmosphere. What seems awesome and current to adults might not to teens, even right this minute. Factor in a couple years until publication, and the potential for embarrassment is a whole lot higher.
I'm not knocking super commercial books tied to the times. They're fun, and important too. But I really, really want my books to endure as long as possible. And so I do my best to write around pop culture, either by keeping things generic ("my phone" instead of "my Android"), classic (David Bowie is forever), or just refraining from implementing them into the plot unless absolutely necessary.
What do you think about pop culture and technology in books? (Set in the present-day, of course – SF is different!) Do you include it? How much? If not, how do you write around it?
I've noticed some authors invent celebrities, bands, websites and devices. Sometimes I find it even more distracting, though. What so you think?
The National Book Award erroneously nominated Lauren Myracle's Shine for their Young People's Literature category... then asked her to recuse herself from the running "to maintain the integrity of the award." As you might imagine, everyone had something to say on this topic: Publishers Lunch, Publishers Weekly, The Huffington Post, and NPR, for starters. Author Libba Bray pulled no punches with her post taking the NBA to task:
"You f*cked up, NBA. You f*cked up in such a colossal, tone-deaf,
insulting, humiliating way that I almost wish there were a National
F*ck-Up Awards Foundation so we could give you the gold. Bravo. Take a
f*cking bow. And then, maybe you could take a moment to reflect upon how
much “preserving the integrity” of your award cost you.
I can
only hope that when you dictate the amount of that check to the Matthew
Shepherd Foundation, you don’t do it over the phone."
- Emmy Laybourne contacted us this week with the following:
"Flylit Press is an start-up ePublisher connected to a new eReader mobile web app (to be released in December, 2011). We are searching for new YA titles to feature in our launch. We will pay a modest advance ($15000 for a novel $250 for a short story) and a percentage beyond the advance. Please submit asap! No Works In Progress, please. We're looking for shiny, polished material."
- Agent Kate Testerman is offering a box of books to someone in need, and a bunch of other agents have volunteered to donate too. If you're a teacher, librarian, or know of a group who could use the donation, head on over!
Last month my second novel, SHUT OUT, was released, and a few days ago I discovered that my third book will be out June 5th. It was a strange thing to realize that I was a real author now - and that I'd written and sold and edited three novels. Even stranger though was looking back at what I expected life as a full-time author to be like before any of this began. It's a lot different from the reality. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worst.
So here they are. The (not really) secret confessions of multi-published YA author. Are you ready to be scandalized? Or just amused?
Confession #1 - Sometimes I Play Favorites
I've heard some authors say they can't pick their favorite of their books or of their characters, that it's like choosing between your children. If that's the case, I'm doomed to be a terrible mother. I definitely play favorites. I'm not ashamed to admit my third book, A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHTMARE, is my favorite. That doesn't mean I don't love my other books, but I just kind of love this one more. Is that so wrong?
Confession #2 - I'm So Not Famous
Growing up, I always saw authors as celebrities. I wanted their autographs, I wanted to ramble at them about their work, I wanted to meet Sarah Dessen just as much as I wanted to meet Natalie Portman. To me, authors were famous! But let me tell you, two books in, I'm not famous. No one takes pictures of me when I leave my apartment dressed in sweats, no one recognizes me in the store (not even the bookstore), and when people ask me what I've written, they usually have never heard of my books. Authors might be celebrities to nerds like me, but to most people, not so much. And honestly? That's a good thing, because I wear sweats a lot.
Confession #3 - I'm not Rich, But I'm Not Poor Either
I always thought writers were either very rich or very poor, depending on their level of success. But I've discovered the truth is not so dramatic. In actuality, I'm neither rich nor poor. I make enough money to live comfortably, but sometimes I still eat Cheerios for dinner. And, from what I gather, this is the case for most professional writers. They may not be rolling in the cash, but they probably aren't starving either. And most of them have day jobs, too!
Confession #4 - Sometimes I Think I Suck
Somehow, I always thought that if I ever go t published, all of my low self-esteem would fade off into the distance - at least the writing related worries. But that's far from the truth. If anything, I'm more paranoid about sucking. What if my agent realizes I'm not actually a good writer? What if my editor hates my next submission? What if I'll never write anything this good ever again? With every project, I have at least one major "This is terrible!" freak out.
Confession #5 - And Sometimes I DO Suck
Most of the time low self confidence is all in my head, but other times, the book really isn't great. Selling three books doesn't mean every book after will be great. Selling three books doesn't mean every book will sell. You can still be rejected by an editor, or your agent can tell you a project isn't your strongest. Sometimes you have to scrap projects you love because its the wrong time - or just because they aren't as good as you think they are. It doesn't matter how many books you've published, your track record will never be perfect.
Confession #6 - Most Days I Don't Get Out of My Pajamas
Growing up, I always thought being a writer was all about jetting off on tour, wearing cool clothes, signing copies of my book, and meeting other cool authors. Somehow, I always forgot about the actual writing part. And while the other things do happen occasionally, they don't happen for everyone and they only take up a small amount of time. Most days, I'm just sitting in my bed in my pajamas hacking away on my laptop. Most days my hair doesn't get brushed and I don't put on makeup and my apartment is a mess! Most days I look like crap and I don't see anyone but my roommates and my characters. So it's a good thing Confession #2 is true because if I were famous, people would think I was a real slob!
And those are my confessions. It's funny how different your perceptions of a life can change once you're living it.
What about you? Are there any things you used to think about writing that you've since learned aren't true? Or do you have any writing confessions people might be surprised to hear? We'd love it if you'd share!
Aw, man, now I really want to watch 101 Dalmatians.
Welcome to our 101st Road Trip Wednesday!
Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.
We have a special feature today: Author Corrine Jackson interviews her fabulous agent, Laura Bradford!
Corrine Jackson's young adult novel If I Lie will be published by Simon Pulse in September 2012. Touched, the first book of her young adult paranormal romance trilogy, will be published by Kensington in December 2012.
Laura Bradford established the Bradford Literary Agency in 2001. She
considers herself an editorial-focused agent and takes a hands-on
approach to developing proposals and manuscripts with her authors for
the most appropriate markets.
---
Cory: What originally prompted you to ask for sample pages of TOUCHED?
Laura: It is usually hard to put into words what exactly makes me decide to ask for a partial. It isn’t always anything easily identifiable like a REALLY AWESOME FONT. It can often be kind of nebulous, some vibe I picked up or a word or phrase that hit me just right. I can take the original query letter and highlight what caught me:
Dear Ms. Bradford,
I would like you to consider Touched, my YA suspense novel. The manuscript is complete at 99,000 words.
Seventeen-year-old Remy O’Malley heals people with touch, but her power comes at a steep cost. Every illness or injury she cures becomes her own. The pain she can handle, but she worries a day will come when she won’t recover from healing some terrible disease. Then she meets eighteen-year-old Asher Blackwell. Scarred and dangerous, he knows more about her abilities than she does, and she can’t resist wanting to know everything about him.
Once a Protector of Healers, Asher sacrificed his ability to touch, taste, and smell to become immortal. Only by killing a Healer can a Protector feel a shadowy echo of their human senses, and Remy’s kind have been hunted into near extinction to feed their enemy’s hunger for sensation. After a century of living a half-life, Asher yearns for mortality. Remy is more powerful than any Healer he’s known, and the intense pain he feels each time he touches her shocks him, almost more than his inexplicable desire to be near her.
Falling in love is against the rules between these two enemies and could destroy them both. Because Remy has the power to make Protectors human again, and when they find out, they’ll be coming for her, if Asher doesn’t kill her first.
I have a Master’s in English Literature and am working on my MFA in Fiction at Spalding University. My work has been published in Dash Literary Journal. I'd be glad to send my complete manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Corrine Leslie Jackson
--YA suspense I don’t get a lot of queries for YA suspense so it isn’t completely “mined-out” if you know what I mean. Clearly this material is paranormal, though she didn’t label it that way. This label hooked me because it was somewhat more unusual in the market (i.e. I haven’t read 10 billion YA suspense novels and already feel sick to death of them.) This material turned out to probably be more properly labeled as a YA paranormal romance but the suspense stakes are VERY high. So she didn’t misrepresent the type of material she was presenting but she may have spun it. Which is totally allowed.
--99,000 words. That is pretty long. The length may have made me pause for a half second but ultimately it isn’t such an outlier than I decided to skip it. Had this been 10k longer, if I wasn’t TOTALLY feeling the vibe, I would have passed probably. Word counts are important.
--steep cost Oh goody, HIGH STAKES!
--she meets eighteen-year-old Asher Blackwell. Scarred and dangerous Even better! This is looking like it might have some strong romantic tones—I love that—AND the hero is a bad boy. Danger can make romance complicated. Complicated is good.
--can’t resist So the hero is irresistible even though he is bad for the heroine. Excellent.
--Asher sacrificed his ability to touch, taste, and smell to become immortal. Pretty compelling
--Remy’s kind have been hunted into near extinction to feed their enemy’s hunger for sensation. And the hot dangerous hero is her enemy? And like the ones who have hunted her kind into extinction he, too, is hungering for sensation? This should be good.
--the intense pain he feels each time he touches her shocks him, almost more than his inexplicable desire to be near her. Intense pain = tortured hero. Yeah. We love this. Pair it with inexplicable desire (I am a total romance hound) and I’m sold.
--Falling in love is against the rules between these two enemies and could destroy them Star crossed lovers. A classic since Romeo and Juliet.
--if Asher doesn’t kill her first. Boy, I hope he doesn’t kill her. I hope they fall in luuuurrrve! And make out a lot.
Just imagine reading a query letter can sometimes be like when the teacher is talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah if Asher doesn’t kill her first Wah Wah Wah. A lot of it can kind of drop away and we either catch something that grabs us or we don’t. You’ll notice I didn’t highlight anything in the last paragraph. It is usually the hook of the story that grabs me not the author’s credentials. Unless the author says he/she has been multi published in a big way (traditionally with a major pub, or with an epub with HUGE sales numbers, relatively recently), in which case, OF COURSE that draws my attention.
Cory: You often tweet about your day and what you are reading. What do you want people to know about agenting? Laura: Agents wear a ton of hats and our work day/week is not at all 9 to 5 or 40 hours/week. This work requires a lot of… personality wrangling for lack of a better term. Authors come in infinite variety and we need to shrink or expand to fit their needs. We are charged with handling the business end of something that can be intensely personal and emotional for an author so we have to be mindful about business and sensitive about the emotions. Giving a pep talk to an author who feels defeated and discouraged is every bit as much a part of my work as negotiating a higher advance. Some days it can be hard to switch gears from ball-buster to hand-holder but we do our best to be responsive to our clients’ needs. I really only sign clients I intend to be with for the long haul and like a marriage that means being in it during the good times AND the bad times. And there will be bad times. I love that my work day is always varied. I love that authors come in all varieties. It keeps everything new. The hours are long but I really, really love my work. I joyfully work. And even when the work is hard, or complicated, or emotionally intense, I still think this is the coolest job ever and I would rather do this than anything else.
Cory: What happens if you can’t sell an author’s first book?
Laura: It happens. There are a lot of ways to handle it…sometimes the timing is just wrong. It might be a great book but the market is just too saturated for that theme and editors won’t touch it. If that is the case, maybe it needs to be tabled for a while until the market climate changes. Or maybe it needs to be revised and resubmitted. Maybe non-traditional publication venues need to be considered. In any case, an author should ALWAYS be working on the next thing. I have certainly had the experience where the 1st book I pitch doesn’t sell but the 2nd one does. Or the 3rd. A writer needs to write and keep writing, keep improving their skill, keep developing. I certainly don’t lose faith in the author if we don’t sell the 1st book we send out into the cruel, cruel world.
Cory: What do you look for in an ideal client?
Laura: Someone who is professional. Someone who is serious about his/her career. Someone who can communicate openly.
Cory: What would you love to see in your sub pile?
Laura: I am looking for a great, intense YA thriller. I would love a YA mystery with series potential. In the adult market, I am seeking historical romance especially and I would love to take on a historical mystery with strong romance tones. Of course I am always looking from anything in the genres I handle: romance (all types except inspirational), women’s fiction, mystery, thriller/suspense, urban fantasy (and subcategories of this like steampunk) and YA.
Cory: What’s one thing you would love to change about the industry?
Laura: Well that depends on the day I am being asked that question. For right now I’d really like someone (myself perhaps) to come up with the most reasonable, fair, mutually beneficial, logical business model for the intersection of literary agencies and self publishing. Lots of agents are trying different models on for size and seeing what works. Lots of authors are trying self-publishing on and seeing if it suits them. Some authors are kicking their agents to the curb for being irrelevant in this new age where access to publishing options is more open. Some agents are alienating authors but choosing business models that authors feel pushes a conflicting agenda. Things are really in flux and I’d love to know what the magic pill is. I know that we can work together and all benefit from that.
I spent most of my weekend reading up on translation theory and medieval England's view of its neighbors and not-so neighbors. It's interesting stuff (if you're into that sort of thing). It's also incredibly relevant to what we do as writers.
Writing and reading is essentially one very long translation process. I, the writer, translate my thoughts to (arguably) coherent words, sentences, and paragraphs, with the hope that in the end I will have a book. My readers translate those words back into ideas. And they're not necessarily my ideas - my book doesn't exist in the vacuum of my own mind. It engages with whoever picks it up, opens its pages, and takes in what I've written. I could write a story I'd argue is about creating individuality in a world of globalization (I've been reading to much critical theory, okay?), but a reader might pick it up and think it's about something completely different.
Writers don't control the second half of the translation process - how can we? We're situated in our own personal narratives. Our writing is informed by our day to day lives, but our experiences and perception of the world around us. We can't account for what every reader has experienced, how they're going to engage with our words or what they'll take away from our stories.
But (you knew there was going to be a but, didn't you?) that's not an excuse for locking yourself into your experiences. One of the things we learn, especially when trying to think critically about medieval literature, is to read against the grain. In non-smart terms (because I'm not a PhD yet and I don't know how to say it in smart terms that involve words like historicizing and philology) it means question everything. That dress, that building, that boat, that travel - everything is questioned and requestioned. A story tells so much in what it says - it says even more in it's quiet spaces, in what it doesn't say or address.
We do the same thing in our writing - or rather, we should. Don't just stick things in your story, and don't stay comfortable. Question what you're translating out of your head - why that city, or that person, or that piece of dialogue? What does it reveal about your characters? About their thought processes? About their beliefs and prejudices?
Translation shouldn't be easy - it's complicated, and sneaky. There's nothing effortless about it - nor should there be. Writing easily is fun - but once you do the first bit, I'd suggest to stop and do the second bit, too. Question everything. You'll appreciate the story better, and your readers will discover so many thing when they translate your words back into thought.
For those of us who celebrate, tonight is a night to
encounter all things spooky and terrifying. Oh, sure, there’s the fun stuff
like parties and apple bobbing and corn mazes and YA Highway pumpkin carving contests, but Halloween is also a time to face our fears: to enjoy being
scared. 
See, what’s great about Halloween is also the best thing
about scary books and scary movies. When and where else can you go up against
giant spiders and were-turkeys and ventriloquist dummies* and bad candy and
live to tell about it?
The same goes for celebrities. A few years ago, Tom Cruise was Chief of the Crazies, but he's been replaced by Charlie Sheen – and even that bout of lunacy feels like old news. For a long while, Britney's antics dominated headlines, but they've since been superseded by Paris's, then by Lindsey's, and now Snooki's, and next, who knows. Hopefully not yours or mine. 
