Lewis Carroll once said, “What is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?”
As middle-grade and young adult writers, we owe our readers those pictures and conversation. They are the toughest audience around. Right around third grade, they start to form very strong opinions. Each day in my third grade class, I would get a round of critiques, with their observations, all of their up-and-downs. They would watch to see what I had on my desk, what I’d put around the room, how I might be reacting to the fact that Owen is taking all the razor blades out of the pencil sharpeners, and Anna has brought her cell phone to school and is showing it off in the cubby room. Kid readers see and hear and feel everything with the sharpness that hasn't yet had the edges buffed or smoothed. So it is our job to make them see and hear and feel every last bit of our story. We have to provide the pictures and conversation. We have to drop those kids into our book from the first page, from the first sentence, or they are going to turn around and leave. Remember, we’re not there to teach; we’re there to entertain.
They need an equal amount of action, description, and dialogue. Not one word should be there that doesn’t drive the story forward. Give them something to wonder about on the first page. Give them someone to worry about or cheer for.
Novelist Andre Gide said, “The poor novelist constructs his characters; he controls them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them function; he eavesdrops on them even before he knows them.”
So today, go do a little eavesdropping. Watch, listen, and wonder. Color a few pictures.
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