Publishing can be a dog-eat-dog world (or, as one editor once said, bunny-eat-bunny). It's not a place for the fainthearted–if you want a spot on a publisher's list, you have to be willing to stand up and fight.

I'm exaggerating, of course (just a bit, anyway). But young adult writer Frankie Diane Mallis took this attitude to heart when she went after landing her dream agent. She outlines her attack in four stages (Training, Weapons, Battle Plan, Winning the War) in her article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. No, she's not dangerous, just very determined. And her plan worked, so maybe it will work for you too.

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and young adult literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Visit Audrey's blog, Audrey Reads and Reviews, for more of her insights into YA lit.

Hello, people! I have two topics that I’d like to address today.

First off, something that I don’t like.

I’ve been reading lots lately, more than usual (which is saying something). I’ve also been reading different genres—I’ve picked up some paranormal, high fantasy, and lots of literary contemporary.

Throughout a bunch of the paranormal and high fantasy that I read, there was a recurring theme (not so much in the literary-contemporary):

Those perfect little people who talk like they’re from the Victorian Age (i.e. very smart and formal) and always look super pretty! even after some intense battle scene. In fantasy/paranormal, they usually have powers that are super epic! or they’re the Chosen One. In realistic fiction they’re always super popular! or super misunderstood!

OK, so they annoy me for two reasons:

One, on a more technical level: relate-ability. I mean, who looks completely gorgeous and/or devilishly handsome (a common description of the male characters of this persuasion) all the time? And sorry, authors, but everyone uses contractions. You shouldn’t, can’t, and hopefully won’t have a character who says “should not” “cannot” and “will not” all the time.*

Also, am I the only one who thinks the Chosen One is a little…you know…cliché? I mean, there are a lot of books out there about someone who is the special-est…

Also, if your character is popular, that’s okay. If your character is misunderstood, that’s okay too. But if your character is misunderstood because she is so beautiful, it’s a complete curse, like, you know?! we might have a little problem, and I suggest you read My Immortal by Tara (Google it).

Two, on a completely personal level: they. are. everywhere. It’s the attack of the clones, people!

I recently read a series of books, paranormal mystery-romance. These weren’t little books, they were like 600-700 pages each. I liked some parts of it a lot—the action/battle scenes were well written, and the world nicely developed. But every single character in it was super perfect, beautiful, either a sweetheart or sexyevil. Very Mary-Sue like. So I stopped reading about halfway through the second book.

I mean, even the character who is supposedly is so evil, you guys! is oh-so-sexy and devilishly handsome.

It really bugged me. You know, a friend of mine said that you should kill off a character that gets WAY too much physical description compared to the other characters.

Well, if this extremely popular series killed off the overly-described characters, there would be no story. **

Just a tip: describe your character once. You can reinforce it, if you like, with “she flicked her pink hair” or something like that, but you do not need to remind us that Elaina has luscious blonde hair or Damien has devilishly handsome black eyes every single page.

Be creative. Your character should have a great personality, not just a beautiful exterior, because… shallow, much?

Now the good:

I just finished reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and I absolutely loved it! I strongly encourage you read it.

I liked it because it was bubbly. One of the Wills was a normal teen; the other one was severely depressed. But, somehow, the two authors (John Green and David Levithan) managed to make it…light. It dealt with heavy subject matter at times (self-identity, self-harm, depression, lying, revenge), but it retained a nonchalant tone throughout.

That’s not to say that you should write a novel with a suicidal main character, and have her sound all breezy and offhand. But it’s a nice juxtaposition that the two authors did well.

Another thing I liked about Will Grayson, Will Grayson was that it was smart. The narrators were both intelligent, and I am sick of reading books with narrators who sound dumb or have no interesting insights. You don’t have to write a SAT Vocabulary book to make your main characters sound smart, however. Just have them talk like normal intelligent human beings—witty retorts, irony, and sarcasm are always a plus.

I also read Marcelo in the Real World, and I absolutely loved it!

The main character, Marcelo, had Asperger’s Syndrome. However, he was a very real, engaging, interesting character to read about. His struggles weren’t ones that teens would face every day, but I grew to relate and care about Marcelo.

Also, the voice (written by Francisco X. Stork) was amazing! It had interesting wordplay, humor, and was really touching. During most of the novel, I could feel Marcelo’s passion for his cause.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters, too. I liked how the main characters were so different from each other, and disliked each other from the start, but grew to be friends. I liked how everything didn’t work out perfectly. And I especially liked how, in the end, you could see exactly how the characters grew as people and as friends.

Audrey

*unless they’re geniuses, or something like it.

** no, I did not read Twilight. What kind of person do you think I am?

****disclaimer: I have no problem reading about characters with exceptional looks. Just don’t make their looks the only exceptional thing about them, and give them at least one physical flaw. Just 'cos nobody’s perfect. ****

Know your audience. This sage advice is appropriate for all writers and, in particular, authors of children’s books. “Children” is a broad concept, representing a wide range of readers from birth to young adulthood.

In order to communicate clearly so readers will enjoy and understand the story, we have to recognize the differences in age groups. The writing should be appropriate for the age group of the target audience. Emerging skills and changing interests of children require different writing for different ages.

Nancy Kelly Allen is the author of fiction and nonfiction picture books, including Happy Birthday: The Story of the World's Most Famous Song, Trouble in Troublesome Creek, and the Little World Math Concepts series. See all her work at www.nancykellyallen.com. For more information on writing for different age groups, see The CBI Challenge, a step-by-step writing course on The CBI Clubhouse.

Before writing the first word, determine the age group of the reader. Understanding the interests and abilities of the audience helps us adjust our message of what we say and how we say it. We should also consider the interests of the age group so we can develop a character with which the reader can identify. Younger children respond to child-centric books and to concepts reflecting their life experiences. Most kids like to read about characters their same age or slightly older. Boys like to read about male main characters and girls will usually read books with either male or female characters.

Toddlers are concrete learners. They explore books to learn about the world around them and accept the information at face value. Concept books with the themes of counting, colors, and objects are appropriate. Bedtime stories and books about family and animals are favorites, as well. Toddlers enjoy picture and novelty books (board books, cloth books, flap books, and pop-up books). Most of these books, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, have bright colors, few words, and illustrations that are easily recognizable. Read more

Young Adult Writing Tip – Today's Kids

Actually Like Each Other! 

When I was 14, I was terrified of three things:  heights, vegetables and girls.  Thankfully, I got over the last two, although I'm still not a fan of tall places.

If I were to write a young adult story about a similar young man with those fears living in today's world, my teenage readers may nod in understanding with the the first two concerns, but scratch their heads at the last one.   That's because, for many kids, the barriers that used to exist between the sexes, between social cliques and even between grade levels are far less a concern than they were when we were young.

Laura and I have been taking our 15 year old music nut to a bunch of concerts to see artists popular with his age group. (An aside – go see My Chemical Romance, they're really, really good.)  At these shows, one thing strikes you straight away — these kids all act like they know each other.  Giant groups of kids mingle together, hug one another and act as if they've been buddies all their lives.

Now, when I was a kid going to shows (and no, it wasn't to see Al Jolson and Enrico Caruso, smart ass), that would never happen.  I went with my boys and we didn't mix with anyone.  It was an arena filled with thousands of small tribes, all eyeing one another warily.  But take any bunch of teenagers today, toss 'em in a room and it's kumbiya time.

I asked my son about this and he had a simple answer:  these kids — who have never met in person — already know each other via Facebook.  They're online friends, or they're friends of friends and thus, they're buddies.  Typical exchange:

Kid 1:  "Hey, what school do you go to?"

Kid 2: "West High in Murphystown."

Kid: "I go to South High in Elmwood. But I'm Facebook friends with Joe Smith from West High."

Kid 2:  "Cool.  Joe's a great guy.  What's your name?"  (Gets name, whips out smart phone, befriends Kid 1.  They are now pals.)

Now of course there are other reasons than social media to explain the higher comfort level teenagers have with one another today, and I'm certain there are still no shortage of alienated kids and teens who get tongue-tied around the opposite sex, but the point is this:  If you think that alienation from peers is anywhere near as prevalent among young adults as it was back in your day, you need to do some more observation.  Go to some concerts, wander around the mall, stay out the way and watch the way your readers connect with one another. 

You'll get a better understanding of your market — and you may even start feeling a little bit better about our future.  In a world where fear and mistrust tend to get all the attention, it's nice to know that today's enemies may be tomorrow's Facebook friends.

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!

Lauren Myracle is being called this generation's Judy Blume, and since she's a fellow resident of Fort Collins, I just had to link to her interview in Publishers Weekly. Lauren's got that gift for speaking directly to teens and pre-teens, and especially captures the sensibility of girls wrestling with issues that their parents might not want to talk about. And even though her books routinely make the challenged and banned lists, she's not all dark and emo-ish. Check out her website to see her sunny, sensitive side that readers so love.

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Visit Audrey's new blog, Audrey Reads and Reviews, for more of her insights into YA lit.

For this blog post, I’ve interviewed Alma Alexander. Ms. Alexander has published the YA fantasy series Worldweavers from HarperTeen. Her side project is a very interesting one—she wrote a novel as a 14 year old, and she has been editing it and revising it on a website: http://heritageofclan.wordpress.com/. Visit her online at: http://www.almaalexander.com/.

Audrey: I really like the social structure of the story (with the clans and guilds etc). But, more than that, I like the world you’ve created. Do you have any advice for creating a world so thoroughly? When I read your work, I feel like there’s a bigger world out there than just the parts that you’ve written about. Any advice?

Alma: Actually there is a whole file that I created about that world (and yes, I still have that too) which delves into ALL SORTS of detail about it – most of which never ever makes it into the book/story itself. It’s what I call the Iceberg Theory of Writing – what the reader sees is only the top 5% of what there is to know, the stuff that’s above the waterline and looks pretty and spectacular. But it RESTS on all that invisible 95% that is under water, never seen. That is what provides the stability and familiarity for that 5% which appears to be floating effortlessly in mid-air.

In our own everyday mundane world that 95% can be as visible as the rest – simply because we LIVE in this world 24/7, live it breathe it hold it touch it smell it every day, and it’s deeply and utterly familiar and transparent to us. We take a huge amount of stuff for granted, simply because we KNOW that it is there. Creating a fantasy world from scratch means that you lack this built-in scaffolding, and you have to build your own. The advice you are asking for boils down to one simple thing – ALWAYS know more about your world than you let on, and then the reader will instinctively pick up on the fact that there is more to know, and therefore the world has a depth and a reality which is then comparable to our own “real” world.

Audrey: You have a lot of characters. They all seem to have totally different personalities. How do you do this? I love ensemble casts (I usually write them, but mine are mainly all teenagers), and you seem to be writing about all different social castes and ages. How do/did you figure everything out about the characters? How do/did you keep everything straight about them? When I try to do a lot of characters, I mix them up.

Alma: Hi, my name is Alma and I HEAR VOICES…

Well, that’s a simplistic way of putting it, but that’s what it boils down to, for me. I don’t so much create characters as allow them in, simply let them wander by and tell me a story, and I simply take dictation. The fact that they all have different voices stands to reason – they are all different people. I contain many many people, I contain worlds. But it isn’t something I do on a conscious level. I simply listen.

Part of the ability to write across the boundaries of class and race and age comes from the fact that I am a voracious reader. I devour books – and every book I read teaches me something which gets filed away for future reference for if and when a character who might be so VERY different from myself might need such knowledge or identity markers. If I am writing about somebody from a culture with which I am less than adequately familiar, I will immerse myself in reading about that culture until I “internalize” some of its basic ideas and beliefs – and with those, comes the voice.

A character’s voice is rooted in that character’s context and culture. These are creatures who all exist in a complex mix of relationships to the people and places in their lives, to their set of beliefs, to their faith, to their worldview, to their morality, to their physical and metaphysical address in the world in which they live. All of these things inform the way they respond to that world.

In the Clans book, for instance, I am setting up a conflict between two people who love and respect each other – who are foster-brothers – who have both grown up aristocrats in a world where aristocrats have a certain social position – but their minds and the thoughts and feelings therein are very different, and when their positions in their world are rocked by new revelations they respond in ways that will set them up as enemies in what amounts to a civil war. It is important to realize that even people who on the face of it look almost identical to one another might react very differently to the same stimulus – and once you keep this in mind, the different inner voices of these people will make themselves known to you if you listen closely. Read more

I've written in Children's Book Insider newsletter and on the CBI Clubhouse about the difference between middle grade and young adult books. One hallmark, in my mind, is that in YA fiction the protagonist is faced with an adult situation for the first time, and in living through it crosses a threshold into the adult world. At the end of the book the main character is forever changed–he/she can't go back to being a child or adolescent. The protagonist's eyes have been opened a bit to the larger world, and a certain innocence has been lost. In middle grade fiction, though the main character may emerge a somewhat wiser or more worldly than at the beginning of the book, that character is still fundamentally a child. That internal shift that signals a more adult way of moving through the world hasn't quite taken shape.

But writing isn't an exact science, so a second opinion is always welcome. Agent Michael Stearns' post Middle Grade? Teen? Where Do You Draw the Line? on the Upstart Crow Literary blog offers a slightly different way of measuring where your book fits, and comes with a nifty graph. Check it out.

Writers always complain that they need an agent to get a publisher to read their work, but agents won't look at them until they've got a book or two to their credit. Instead of wasting time griping about the unfairness of the industry, first-timer Colleen Houck took matters into her own hands. After getting a pile of rejections for her queries about her young adult fantasy series, Tiger's Curse, Colleen realized she needed to offer an agent more than a manuscript–she needed a platform. So she self-published the first book through Amazon, then turned it into a Kindle e-book. Her creative pricing helped the word spread and the book appeared on several must-read lists. One thing led rather quickly to another, and she was contacted by an agent.

"…He said he’d found me on Amazon and was impressed with my reviews. Two days later I had representation at one of the top if not the best agency in the country—Trident Media Group. My new agent, Alex Glass, went to work immediately. 

"Within a few weeks, I had a book deal. The self-published versions of my book were taken offline to prepare for the very aggressive marketing of my new publisher, Sterling, and in less than six months the new version of my debut novel, Tiger’s Curse, was headed to bookstores all over the country."

Sound too good to be true? It's not, and here's why. Before she wrote word one of her books, Colleen read and studied lots of other successful books in the same genre, and knew that, as a newbie, she'd have to write a book that was so good people couldn't help but talk about it. Her insistence at writing a quality book, plus her grassroots marketing strategies, led to her success.

There's nothing Colleen did that you can't do as well. Read her story here and get inspired

My eight-year-old daughter is a scientist. This isn’t a career choice. This is just a fact of her being.

When she was 18 months old, she accidentally pulled on her sensitive big brother’s hair.

He cried!

Another child might have felt guilty or might have been upset. Not my daughter. She had only one possible reaction:

I wonder what will happen when I do that again!

And again and again.

Fast forward seven years, and she’s a regular exhibitor at our county science fair. If I want her to practice her penmanship, we do science. If she learns new words, it’s through science.

In the midst of this we had an accidental book club. We’re homeschoolers, and we do a lot of driving. Those two combined mean that we love audiobooks. I balk at the high price tag, so we get most of our audiobooks from the library. This means that more often than not, we listen to whatever happens to be on the shelves.

Unintentionally, two of the books we listened to were about girls who love science.

The first was The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. This lovely book by Jacqueline Kelly covers nearly a year in the life of a girl living in rural Texas at the turn of the 20^th century. She forms an unexpected alliance with her grandfather, an amateur naturalist, and becomes entranced with science the way that some girls now become entranced with teen idols.

This positive portrayal of a girl scientist in a place where she is so completely out of place is riveting. Not only did it inspire more interest in evolution and botany in my already science-loving kids, but it presented the role model of a girl who is a scientist against all odds.

The second book, The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages, is also historical, set in Los Alamos as scientists work desperately to create the “gadget” that will end the war. Dewey is a born scientist also, in this case, an inventor. She loves to create her own gadgets, and largely ignores the taunting of the other kids. When she is unexpectedly required to spend a few weeks living with another family, she forms an alliance with another misfit girl, who is finding her calling as an artist.

Sea and Tate are very different books. In Tate, the negative pressure on the main character comes largely from adults. In Sea, however, adults are largely charmed by Dewey’s inventiveness, but the kids are just short of brutal to her.

In both books, however, today’s girl scientists can see girls sticking to science because it is what calls to them. Interestingly, both books almost ignore the girls’ schooling, which seems tangential to their real lives. Read more

Editor's note: Audrey is a 13-year-old student from California who is currently working on her own novel between school, sports and choir. She's also a Contributing Editor to Write4Kids, focusing on middle grade and YA literature. If you have writing-related questions for Audrey, or want to suggest a topic for a future column, please contact Laura at Laura@write4kids.com.

Hi!

Since I’ve received some questions from YA writers, I’ve decided to do a Q-and-A post. If you like it, I’ll do more in the future.

Elizabeth asks:

 Do historical mysteries appeal to you at all?

My answer:

I hate to have a cop-out like this, but honestly, it depends. The historical fiction we read in school is so darn boring. Everyone agrees about that. It’s because every single book we read in class has the exact same plot: orphan goes on a “quest” to find their remaining family/find out who they are. Seriously, all the books we read have the same plot, but just a different time period. The Girl Named Disaster (Nancy Farmer), Crispin and the Cross of Lead (Avi), The Sign of the Chrysanthemum (Katherine Paterson), The Winter People (Joseph Bruchac) are some of the books we’ve read, and if you are interested, choose a couple of titles out of that list, read them, and just see for yourself the oddly identical plots.

I know there is an influx of “glam” historical fiction coming into the YA market now. The Luxe (Anna Godbersen) is what, in my opinion, started this influx. But I apologize in advance, because some people now equate insulting The Luxe to dissing Twilight (but dissing Twilight has become somewhat PC now), but I really didn’t like The Luxe. Ok fine, it was superbly researched, but it was just boring, because once you get over the pretty cover picture and fluffy vocabulary, it’s like, “Plot? What plot?”

So I guess it depends. A historical novel I enjoyed was Wicked Girls (Stephanie Hemphill), which was a beautiful novel-in-verse about the Salem Witch Trials. I liked Wicked Girls because the characters were very interesting and entertainingly creepy, and the poetry was stunning. Another that I enjoyed was Abundance (Sena Jeter Naslund), a fictionalized account of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution (Abundance is listed as adult fiction, but I’d say it is very YA). I liked Abundance because it was very intriguing, and painted the queen in a sympathetic manner. I also enjoyed the semi-insane cast of supporting characters. What I didn’t like about Abundance was that it got really boring and overly political in the middle/end parts.

History has always interested me, but I’ve yet to find a completely engrossing historical fiction novel, which is a shame.

Taurean asks:

What's Behind the Curtain anyway. What is it about Ty that's so irresistible?

My answer:

Behind the Curtain is a very well-written younger YA mystery by Peter Abrahams. Check it out.

Now that I’m over Ty (fickle, fickle teenage girls) I can tell you why I liked him without being all fan-girly.

Ty was awesome because he was a normal badass. Like, he didn’t carry around a switchblade and he couldn’t fly. He was also pretty detached and had his own life, but he was super sweet and/or protective (NOT in a creepy Edward stalker way) to girls. Also, he was the only freshman on varsity football and I found that cool, because, I don’t know, athletic guys are usually pretty cool.

But he did have his issues. He was on steroids for a lil bit there, but he got it all sorted out.

And also somewhere it said that he looked like an Abercrombie model, and that’s always a plus.

So, yeah. That’s why I liked Ty Levin-Hill.

Nancy asks:

From your last post: “A lot of times, the language in YA books seems really dated and not authentic…." Not to split hairs, but a sincere question: Do you mean to refer to YA manuscripts? Or do you actually find recent, published YA books to be dated/not authentic?

My answer:

Both. I remember reading a book a few weeks ago aloud to my mom, and laughing about how out-of-touch it was. And it was published in February. One of the many examples is, “'Oh, nuts,' she sputtered, looking down at her once perfectly creased tan slacks that matched the stripe in her violet sweater vest.”

Actually, I’ve researched, and turns out it’s an entire series of books (I only read the first one). So yeah, books with awfully outdated slang have been published.

Also, I read another book (published last year), and the only sort of slang it had was an abundance of swearing. And trust me, swearing isn’t slang.

Amber-Dawn asks:

You mentioned that you hate it when young people in books have dialogue that sounds like they’re from another time period. Do you feel the same way if a book is written in a fantasy world that is supposed to be from, well, you know, a long time ago? And also, I’ve never tried to do accents before, but you mentioned it’s a pet peeve of yours for writers to sound out the words like an accent would sound. So is it ever cool to try and write a character’s dialogue in the accent where they’re from?

My answer:

I meant that I don’t like it when books that take place in modern times have characters who speak like they’re from another time period. If you are writing a book that takes place in a fictional world or is set in 1853 or whatever, you should definitely have the characters talk like they’re from the past.

I don’t know what you mean by accent. If you’re writing about a character from the South, you should definitely have the stereotypical Southern-isms in it, such as “y’all”. But please don’t write the character’s normal speech like “can yah pah-lease tell me the tahme?” That would be really annoying, like, trust me, as annoying as reading a The Clique book. Because that’s how they talk in those books (for example, “'Uh’v koursse!' said Ah-nna.”)

Tobi asks:

What’s your take on the incursion of “dark” young adult novels?

My answer:

I hate vampires. Sorry. They’re lame. Like, Edward Cullen is the most stalkerish, creepy, epic fail at badass-ness character ever. So he basically killed all curiosity in vampires that I could potentially have. And all my friends feel the same way. Also, Stefan, from the Vampire Diaries, really annoys me because he’s all sensitive but tries way too hard to be a tough guy. And I don’t particularly like werewolves either, but everybody knows they’re dead by now.

Also, the Ellen Hopkins novels (Fallout, Glass, and others) are something that I have absolutely no interest in. People with serious and creepy mental problems don’t interest me. Same with Wintergirls. I don’t particularly like books about mentally disordered people (such as cutters or anorexics), but I do enjoy the books by Mary Downing Hahn, which are interestingly scary.

Don’t follow trends, because trends will be dead and gone by the time your novel is out on the market. So, if you’re writing a book about vampires (dead last year) or werewolves (dead last summer), stop now, hit the Control-f keys to find and replace the word “vampire” or “werewolf” with “guido” and the word “pale” or “furry” with “orange”.

Any other questions? Comment or email!

Audrey