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START YOUR NOVEL

Six Winning Steps Toward a Compelling Opening Line, Scene and Chapter

• 29 Plot Templates
• 2 Essential Writing Skills
• 100 Examples of Opening Lines
• 7 Weak Openings to Avoid
• 4 Strong Openings to Use
• 3 Assignments to Get Unstuck
• 7 Problems to Resolve

The Math adds up to one thing: a publishable manuscript. Download a sample chapter on your Kindle.

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“I just want my novel out there.”
Ouch.
Too many times lately, I have heard people say this about their self-publishing efforts. Out there. I just want it out there. What does that even mean?

It means a couple things:
First, it means that the writer can find closure to his/her writing process. It means there is a finished product and the creative process has ended. Now, it’s up to everyone else to do whatever they will do with that product: ignore it, read it, praise it, trash it. But the writer can move on. There’s value in this, of course, to have something finished and not on the back burner, to have it stop nagging.

Second, the writer usually means that the story, novel, picture book, or nonfiction book will find readers. Here’s where the writer is wrong. The book will not find readers by itself. Guaranteed.

In their fascinating book, DECISIVE, Chip and Dan Heath talk about one flaw in the decision making process, namely, that people overestimate their own success and ignore solid data in front of them. In fact, most self-published books sell less than 100 copies. If your book is OUT THERE without any support, you will NOT sell copies. Your friends and family–because they love you–may buy copies, but that’s usually the 100 copies that get sold. Do not make this mistake (and how many ways and how strongly can I say this?), you will not sell copies if you do not market.

OUT THERE–publishing a book without marketing a book is not going to work.
Many of you will ignore this fact: you will convince yourself that your story is different and will beat the odds. OK. Do what you have to do. Put it OUT THERE. But it will not sell.

Unless.

A self-published book needs marketing. That means the publishing house (that’s you!) needs a platform, a network of connections that are proven places to sell a book. The author (that’s you!) needs to be working to support the publisher (Oh, that’s you, too!) to sell the book. This can be accomplished through any number of means: catalogs, speaking engagements and back of the room sales (BOTR), online venues, guest blogging, schools, special sales to corporations, gift shops, and on and on. The venues for sales of books are endless. But you must focus somewhere and work to get your book into those venues.

OUT THERE? You want your book out there? Get it out of your head by doing a small printing and giving copies to friends and family as Christmas gifts. But if you really want it OUT THERE in the world wide market place, get ready to work.

Instead, you should be saying, “I want to work hard to get my story into the hands of the right readers.” Now THAT is a worthy goal of self-publishing.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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It started innocently enough. When Scholastic editor Nick Eliolpos spoke at a local conference, he talked about his love of Spiderman. So, I dubbed him the Peter Parker of children’s literature. And now, it’s a tradition that speakers at our conference must be tagged with a popular super-hero or super-character.
Read about these figures in the children’s publishing world:

The Peter Parker of children’s publishing.

The young Bill Gates of children’s literature.

The M of children’s literature, as in 007′s boss

The Snow White of children’s literature.

Glinda, the Good Witch, of children’s literature.

Karl Jones, the He-Man of Children’s Literature

Conference sessions can get repetitive and stuffy, but Karl Jones, Assistant Editor at G.P. Putnam/Penguin, kept the 2013 Arkansas SCBWI conference attendees laughing and working at the same time.

We had writing exercises with provoking questions: what character has traditionally been left out of children’s books and can you find a way to add that character to your WIP?

We had group Pitch sessions: “From the great state of Arkansas, we have Darcy Pattison to regale us with a pitch specially crafted by her group.” It was a take-off on a Pitch session that Jones regularly holds at venues in NYC. Only there, the GPPutnam Editor in Chief gives the winner his business card! The funniest pitch was when Robin Burrows walked on-stage and accidentally tripped and lost a shoe–then pitched a modern version of Cinderella. Yeah, right, Robin! That wasn’t an accident!

Karl Jones has been with GP Putnam for three years and is now starting to acquire. They do everything from picture books through middle grade (no YAs), with many licensed properties that are done as work-for-hire. He’s interested in middle grade novels, in particular.

One of the topics that came up was gender and how it is treated in novels today. He recommended P.K. Pinkerton and the Deadly Desperados as a recent novel that walks a fine line on this issue. Jones said he didn’t know if the main character was male or female until the very end.

In that vein, he talked about He-Man, Master of the Universe and She-Ra, Princess of Power. He noted the irony that He-Man called power from his castle, “By the Power of Gray Skull?” However, She-Ra didn’t get power from her own castle, but had to refer to He-Man’s castle, “For the honor of Gray Skull.” And for that reason, we’ll dub him the He-Man of children’s literature.

Dawn Frederick, the She-Ra of Children’s Literature

Dawn Frederick, agent and owner of Red Sofa Literary, is a roller derby ref and a social media guru. Her list of social media book-related sites was the longest, most comprehensive I have ever seen. Are you on RiffleBooks.com, yet? Are you a Pheed.com addict? Read anything lately on BookCountry.com (a Penguin company)? Will these be the next place that people will discover new books? Maybe. Personally, I am keying in on Pinterest.

Frederick holds a B.S. in Human Ecology, and a M.S. in Information Sciences from an ALA accredited institution; she has been department head for children’s books at a couple bookstores. And yet, she began her career representing adult nonfiction. In that genre, she’s got some quirky titles about zombie tarot cards, roller derby and Yiddish with Dick and Jane. But two years ago, a children’s book editor–astonished at the depth and breadth of her knowledge of kids’ books–insisted she should represent that genre, too. She has since acquired clients who write middle grade and YA novels. Frederick was approachable and enthusiastic, passionate about her clients. And the banter between Jones and Frederick made it an easy decision. If he was He-Man, then she is the She-Ra of children’s literature.

Thanks to Phyllis Heman, Regional Advisor for the AR-SCBWI, for a great conference.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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I’ve written before about writing a children’s picture book in this 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book Series and the basics remain true. However, nonfiction picture books are currently getting a fresh look, mostly because of the education reforms known as Common Core. It requires elementary students to read 50% nonfiction, 50% fiction. That percentage of nonfiction rises to 70% in high school, which impacts longer nonfiction. But today, I’ll concentrate on the impact on picture books.

One of the more interesting developments is that educators, publishers and writers are looking at nonfiction in seven new ways.

1. Narrative Nonfiction. The last 25 years has seen the rise of narrative nonfiction, or nonfiction that is told with fiction techniques. Sometimes called creative nonfiction, this genre emphasizes the story embedded in the search for information. Nonfiction writers use scenes, sensory details, and work for a traditional story arc with a problem that is resolved in a climax. This type story has been popular because it readily engages readers.

   Examples of narrative nonfiction picture books:

   • 
     Turtle Tide: The Ways of Sea Turtles This book is one that has you hanging on the edge, waiting to see if any of the 100 sea turtle babies will survive. Fantastic build to a satisfying climax.
   • Wisdom, the Midway Albatross. My own picture book about the oldest known wild bird in the world uses a series of vignettes that climaxes with the Japanese tsunami overrunning Midway Island.
2. Data (Facts First). Let’s face it: some kids just like facts. Browseable books like the Dorling Kindersley books (white background with stunning photos and related facts) are filled with data. It’s rather like flipping through an encyclopedia of a certain topic until you find the information that fascinates you, stopping to read, then flipping on. It’s the Guiness Book of World Records. Just the facts, Ma’am.
3. Expository (Facts Plus). Taking it a step farther are nonfiction books that give facts but connect them in some way. It’s an explanation of some kind, but doesn’t have to have the story. Often in a picture book, the author reaches for a poetic voice, but the intent is still just an explanation. For an example, look at Frogs by Nic Bishop
4. Books in the Disciplinary Thinking or Experts at Work are nonfiction books that ask how scientists and historians ask questions, evaluate research and develop theories. Sometimes these are biographies of a scientist or historian.

   The Scientists in the Field Series from Houghton Mifflin is the perfect example of this type books. See the 2011 Siebert Winner Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot , written by Sy Montgomery, photographs by Nic Bishop.

5. In Inquiry (Ask and Answer) Books, the author begins mimics the process of scientific discovery by asking a question and then allowing the readers to follow the process of finding the answers.

   The Elephant Scientist is one of the Scientists in the Field Series from Houghton Mifflin, and a 2012 Siebert Honor book. Unlike some of the other book in the series, this one begins with a question: how do elephants hear? Is it possible that they hear sounds through their feet? This leading question is woven throughout the book and indeed, gives it even more of a narrative nonfiction feel. It’s easy to from this book that the subgenres will be hard to tease out. Is this book narrative nonfiction, Experts at Work, or Inquiry? It’s all three. Still, even thinking about it in this way means that we, as writers, have more choices, even when we choose to cross subgenres.

6. Interpretation or Point of View nonfiction titles are not popular right now, but may become a stronger subgenre under the Common Core, as it asks students to do analytical thinking. Here, an author researches a subject in detail, then provides an interpretation of the information. Such books would model what students are required to produce in their own essays.
7. Action Books invite kids do more than sit in a chair and read. Some include activities or experiments, and some are a call to action. They encourage kids to go out and do something that will make a difference in the world.

   I Love Dirt! 52 Activities to Help you and your Kid Discover the Wonders of Nature asks kids and parents get outdoors and do something.

Writing the Nonfiction Picture Book

When you look at a topic—maybe Dads in nature—there are multiple slants you could take on the subject. And now, there are multiple ways to approach the research and writing.

Narrative nonfiction. For this category, there’s no book without a storyline. As you research, you are looking for the story embedded in the details.
Data/Facts. Here, you are looking for solid, reliable, verifiable facts. Of course, you are in any of these categories, but for this category, it is the facts that shine. You will have to organize the book in some way, but the natural divisions in the data will determine the book’s structure.

Expository. Explanations include facts that back up a certain premise or statement. As you research, you are looking for an overarching idea that the facts will explain. Sometimes you’ll start with what needs explanation but sometimes, it will emerge from the research and writing.

Experts at Work. This is a fun category because it means you must seek out experts and follow them around. Writer George Plimpton, who recently passed away, if famous for joining the Detroit Lions American football team in order to give his readers the most intimate sense of playing in this team. This type of immersive journalism may be an extreme example of Experts at Work, but it certainly fits the goals. The story here (and it is often a narrative) is about the expert not necessarily about what the expert is studying or doing.

Interpretation or Point of View. In some ways, picture book biographies are an interpretation of a person’s life. Because the space is limited, these biographies can only cover a portion of a person’s life and by necessity become an interpretation. Dizzy, by Jonah Winters, is about Dizzy Gillespie, the famous Be-pop trumpeter. It leaves out many issues of his family and uses literary techniques to create a sense of what be-pop music is like. It’s a definite point of view. When you write this type story, look for what grabs you personally in a story or set of facts; how can you bring that to the forefront? Are these popular? Dizzy got starred reviews in five different review journals.

Action Books. While facts inform the action book category, it’s what the reader does with those facts that matters. In fact, the emotions evoked by the facts are as important as the facts themselves. It turns into a sort of persuasion essay, using facts to back up the need to do something. Look for facts that back up the actions you want readers to take. Build a strong, emotional case for that action.

Click to Tweet:

• 7 subgenres of nonfiction picture books #amwriting via @FictionNotes
• Writing nonfiction picture books: 7 choices #picturebook #author via @FictionNotes

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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It’s a question I often hear: Can you help me write a book?

Yes. Absolutely.

Here are ten books that will help you write a novel or a picture book. Some are my books, some are other author’s.

1. Help with Basic Writing Skills–how to write a sentence.The Art of Styling Sentences
2. Help Understanding Basic Story Structure: The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
3. Help Writing a Picture Book: How to Write a Children’s Picture Book
4. Help Writing a Memoir: Old Friends From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
5. Help Writing a Mystery: How to Write a Damn Good Mystery
6. Help Writing a First ChapterStart Your Novel
7. Help Writing a Young Adult: Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies
8. Help Writing a Screenplay: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
9. Help Revising a Novel: Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise
10. Help Writing a Blockbuster Novel: The Blockbuster Novel

Other Writing Resources on This Website

• 30 Days to a Stronger Novel
• 30 Days to a Stronger Character
• 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book
• 30 Days to Stronger Scenes
• 30 Days to Think Like a Writer

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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The middle of a novel is one of the hardest places to plot. The set up is easy to imagine and the climax, of course, has to be exciting and emotional. But the sagging middle–how do you handle it?

The Hero’s Journey is one of the most useful of the 29 plot templates because it has such clearly defined stages.

The Hero’s journey handles the middle by starting with the idea that Act I is the normal world, but Act II is a new and different world and the main character’s job is to learn to deal with that world. For a romantic comedy, this might be the New World of courting a girl instead of using a girl. For a science fiction story, there is often an invented world with strange happenings and strange characters to negotiate. The New World just means that in contrast to the Normal World of Act I, something is new and difficult for the main character.

One of the strengths of something like the Hero’s Journey is that it suggests typical events that will happen in certain stages of a story. It’s not that these are required and they are generic events in any case. However, it helps to know what are suggested or typical.

One of the first things a character needs to learn is the rules of the New World. A typical scene is a watering hole, a place where characters of this New World gather and interact. For example, in the original Star Wars movie, Luke and ObiWan go into town and stop at a cantina. Here, we see a wide range of alien species, meet Han Solo and see how he handles what life throws at him, and pull back the curtain a bit on ObiWan’s powers. The function of the watering hole is a sort of orientation to the New World.

Another option is to focus on tests that the main character will encounter. What difficulties will the main character encounter in this brave New World? Our romantic hero finds it hard to figure out how to order flowers for his new sweetie. Or in the sff, the main character has learn to eat whatever gross things aliens eat–and enjoy it.

At the same time, our main character is making allies and enemies, figuring out the political climate, or the local gang, or just how to stay safe. In the Lord of the Rings, this is where Frodo and the gang pick up the Ranger as a guide toward Rivendell. While the main villain needs to be clear in Act I, there are henchmen, allies of the villain, or subplot villains who can surface here.

Next, the Hero’s Journey points toward the midpoint of Act II, the Supreme Ordeal. What is the blackest moment you can imagine for your character? (Stop being nice! You MUST make him/her face the worst case scenario!) This must be a personally impossible moment, not just something generally bad within the context of the story. It’s the moment of despair which will contrast with the triumph at the end of the story.

For our romantic hero, it’s likely the moment he realizes that he’s a jerk and will never be right for Sweetie Pie. Or, it might be when Sweetie Pie dates his best friend. The key is to find the emotional pain. Why does Romantic hurt? Because he sees himself repeating his father’s mistakes, pushing Sweetie Pie away with his cruel words. Can he move past the ghosts of his past and find a new way to live? Right now, it appears that he can’t. Revel in the pain, don’t make light of it. Let the despair play out across one or more scenes.

For our sff story, it may the realization that the character can’t go back to his home world and must live in this alien world the rest of his/her life. All the uncomfortable things of the alien world pile up in this Supreme Ordeal and the pain of loss and separation intensifies.

So, I skipped a stage of the Hero’s Journey called Approach to the Inmost Cave: this is because I don’t know what needs to go there until I know what Supreme Ordeal the character must face. When I am planning a story, I figure out the Supreme Ordeal, then go back and figure out what I need to write to set up that Ordeal. If Sweetie Pie is dating Romantic’s best friend, we need to see that relationship set up, creating the dreaded triangle relationship. Think about what needs to happen to make the Supreme Ordeal a true ordeal. Then, make it happen.

The character comes out of the Supreme Ordeal changed in some way: there is a resolve to do things different than Dad. There is a glimmer of an idea about how to get back home (or how to settle into the alien world as home).

Things aren’t smooth and easy after the Supreme Ordeal, but the character has changed in some way. S/he has a new way of approaching life. And indeed, at the climax of Act II, the character often wins in some way. The Hero’s Journey calls this the Reward or Seizing the Sword. There’s a hard-won confidence, a bright new determination, or a rescue of Sweetie Pie from Best Friend’s evil clutches. Sometimes, there is a physical reward: a doctor finds a cure, treasure is uncovered, or Sweetie Pie and Romantic have supper without fighting.

This isn’t the end of the story, there is still much to cover in Act III. Can this change be permanent or is it fleeting? Will this cure truly work on the population of New York City? Will the new confidence fall apart at the first sign of another suitor for Sweetie Pie? And when Dad comes to meet Sweetie Pie, will that destroy the relationship?

But it is a completion of Act II, the middle of the story. Thanks to the Hero’s Journey!

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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Selling ebooks is as hard as selling a print book and the biggest problem is “discoverability,” the new buzz word these days. Even once a reader discovers your book, how much should you charge? Mark Stoker, head of Smashwords, a service that distributes ebooks, has done some hard statistics and lets the data speak for itself. Watch this slideshare and see what data makes the most difference to what you are currently doing.

Also provocative is Julie Bosman’s recent NYTimes article about the impact of a “daily deal” to get your ebook noticed and catapult it to the top of the charts. Last year, I heard ebook developers talk about turning Dr. Seuss books into ebooks. They said they put everything into the launch date, hoping and expecting the new release to hit the number one spot in the iBook store and Kindle store. It MUST hit that spot, they said, in order to sell well.

What other strategies are working for your ebooks?

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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Do you have a new book coming out and you’re dying to try a book trailer, but you can’t really afford it? Here’s a great option.

If you can’t see this video, click here.

This video was created by MadMoo at Fiverr.com At Fiverr, people post an offer to do something for just $5. For promotion purposes, this is fantastic. You might get a video of someone eating fire, then yelling that they love your book. Perhaps your book is about gymnastics; there’s someone one fiverr.com, I am sure, who would do a video of themselves performing a round-off back handspring, then yelling out your book title. You want weird, wonderful, beautiful, off-beat? Fiverr has it.

The price is right. $5.
Of course, that’s the base price for a limited, carefully defined product. And there are add-ons possible for everything and of course, the Fiverr person wants you to add-on, so they make more money. In most cases, it will be money well-spent. Gee. Maybe you have to spend $20 on a video.

In this case, the video came without music, but I popped it into FinalCutPro, an Apple program and added a public domain piece of music for fun. MadMoo would have added video as an add-on, if I had preferred.

SPECIFICS: I used MadMoo on Fiverr.com, ordering the Stop Motion 10-second video. Instead, I got back a great 30-second video in a format that I specially requested. It came back within 24 hours. Will I order from MadMoo again? Of course. I especially like the Stop Motion videos where a hand is writing something out. (Note: I am not an affiliate with Fiverr and not associated with MadMoo, except as a satisfied customer.)

Is this the perfect promotional tool for everything. Of course, not. But it’s a fun way to get interesting video. I uploaded this to my YouTube channel and will use it as an intro to the channel and will post it around on my website. Once it’s on YouTube, it’s easy to embed into any website, especially a WordPress blog like this one.

Here are five ideas for using a video from Fiverr.com.

• Introduce your blog, website or book with a short video. Let this guy do a side flip while holding a sign with the URL of your site.
• Win an award? This Fiverr will shave a congratulations into his hair and video it.
• Want to thank someone–your editor, your illustrator, your publicist? Do it publically with a ShiftyPop song.
• Have a spicy announcement. Here’s an announcement done with Indian spices. Or with chocolate.
• When your book comes out, you want people to think about it often. Announce it with a special ring tone that you offer as a download on your website.

Be aware that some of the offers are indeed very strange and may include adult content. But go and have fun browsing the crazy offers. If you use something from Fiverr, let me know! I want to see it.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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Children’s Picture Book Award: New Voices Award

While the population of the United States is skewing toward more and more “persons of color,” the publishing world has yet to catch up. In a press release, Lee & Low publishers say that less than 7% of children’s books published are by persons of color. To help encourage writers, Lee and Low has opened submissions for its 14th Annual New Voices Award. The Award is given for a picture book manuscript by an unpublished writer of color.

The Award winner receives a cash prize of $1000 and Lee & Low’s standard publication contract, including their basic advance and royalties for a first time author. The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the United States and who have not previously had a children’s picture book published.

Past New Voices Award-winning books have gone on to win major awards such as the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

For full details on submission, see Lee & Low’s New Voices website.

Children’s Novel Award: New Visions Award

TU BOOKS, the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, has just announced the first annual NEW VISIONS AWARD. The NEW VISIONS AWARD will be given for a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and their standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.

TU BOOKS was launched in 2010, dedicated to diversity in the beloved genre fiction market for young people. Titles include Wolf Mark, Tankborn, and Cat Girl’s Day Off.

Submission details will be available in June; see Lee & Low’s New Visions website.

Award Winners

Here are three examples of recent winners; I was surprised that the most recent I could find was 2007, which means that some of the award winning titles are waiting more than five years to be published. When I asked, a Lee & Low representative said, “This depends on a lot of factors including the amount of editing the manuscript needs upon acquisition and the schedules of the illustrators. Several of our New Voices authors have been paired with established illustrators who are often working on several books at once, which lengthens the process – but their illustrations are well worth the wait. New Voices Award winning-books have gone on to win major awards such as the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and a spot on the Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist.”

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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I just got home from ten days in Europe and I am ready to write. Why?
Because getting out of my writing cave makes me bump up against people, against history, against emotional struggles.

One place we visited is a memorial for the Belzec (Bee AWA zhek) Death Camp in eastern Poland, the first and worst of the Nazi camps which tried to exterminate Jews, gypsies and handicapped people. Over 600,000 people died here in 1941-1943. Then, the Germans flattened the camp and planted trees, in an attempt to hide what they had done.

This is history and deep emotions rolled into one poignant visit. For example, there was only one survivor of the camp–only one!–and his stories are heartbreaking. One quote was from a young boy who had entered the gas chambers and was heard to cry out, “It’s dark, it’s dark. Mama, haven’t I been good?” His last words.

For a writer to experience a sobering memorial something like this is to plumb the emotional depths to which a character might be forced to go.

One place we stayed was a horse farm in eastern Poland and one morning I walked out with my camera to see what was around. Under the eaves of the horse barns were nest after nest of barn swallows. I like trying to find the small, hidden things to photograph, because as a writer, it reminds me to pay attention to the landscape, to notice the “telling details” that could make a story come alive.


I snapped this photo while we were stopped for a break along a country road. Writers need to remember that there are common emotions and thoughts across all languages and cultures, they are common to humanity. Fear of dogs is one of those things.



And you can find beauty across the world, too, beauty in the common things of life such as a window.

The trip was amazing: as a writer, the trip reminded me that stories are universal, that evoking emotions–both happy and sad–is universal, and that beauty is found in the common things of life.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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Hurrah! You have a revision letter from an editor and you are going to make every single, solitary, revision the editor asks for. Right?

Maybe.

When can you say, “No,” to an editor?

You can refuse a contract for any number of reasons. Money, vision for the published manuscript, an unkind word. You never have to sign a contract.

Once a contract is signed, though, you are under contractual obligation to make reasonable changes to the manuscript. You should go into the revision process with a hopeful, positive attitude, expecting to do everything that the editor asks for. The mutual goal is a successful book, and the editor (presumably) knows what sells and how to improve your story to make it sell better.

What if you disagree? The editor is asking for some particular change in your story, and you think the editor is wrong? It’s time to try the editor’s way. Yes, try. Let’s hope that it does work.

If trying it the editor’s way doesn’t work, it’s time for diplomacy. Diplomacy is when you gently work through a difficult, sticky issue and wind up with a result that makes both parties happy.

Explain. When I have faced the problem of disagreeing with an editor, I did a long, detailed explanation of why I wrote the manuscript the way I did. In one case, I had chosen words based on assonance, or certain vowel sounds. The editor’s alternative completely destroyed the voice and sound of the piece. As soon as I detailed my strategy for writing, the editor agreed.

Suggest alternatives. On the other hand, you may be able to suggest a third alternative which incorporates part of the editor’s change, but keeps your ideas, too. The editor will likely agree because your mutual goal is a successful book.


Do not bring in outside comments at this point. It isn’t a time to say that your critique group loved it this way or that way. At this point–when the editor has put down cash–the editor’s opinion is the only one that matters (besides yours.)

Be kind and respectful. Your attitude is crucial. If you go into a conversation knowing that you disagree, you can still be courteous. Remember: your mutual goal is. . .

Be confident. Sometimes, the editor has pinpointed a problem and really doesn’t care HOW you solve it, as long as it gets solved. Editors often don’t know what they want; they just know that what is in front of them doesn’t work. Be confident of your writing skills! you can make the right decisions about your story. Go deeper, into the heart of the issues raised. Solve the problem in a unique way that blows the editor away. S/he won’t mind. Not at all. Because the mutual goal is. . .

The Ultimate No. Of course, you have the ultimate No. If you really, really disagree, and you can’t find that mutual agreement, you can–if you really have to–get out of the contract. It’s sticky and no one wants this. But you can back out. You probably have to repay advances, and know that this will affect your reputation. Weigh this action very seriously and carefully, and be sure you can accept the consequences. Don’t do it lightly. But yes, you are in control of your own story. You can say, “No,” to an editor.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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My bio officially reads like this: Author, blogger, and writing teacher Darcy Pattison (www.darcypattison.com) has been published in eight languages.

How do those foreign language books come about? It depends.

Your book contract included world rights. It all depends on your book contract. If you signed a contract that allowed world rights in all languages, then the publisher has the right to exercise those rights, or not. The easiest way for publishers to do this is to attend the Bologna (Italy) Children’s Book Fair, where publishers worldwide gather to make deals. You’ll find publishers who specialize in children’s books, or larger publishers with strong children’s imprints. It’s here that deals were made for my books in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Taiwanese Chinese, German and Arabic for an Egyptian company. Here’s one report on the 2013 Children’s Book Fair. It will be held March 24-27 in 2014.

Generally, authors can’t do much to encourage their book’s translation rights sales; it’s up to the Rights people at the publisher, or to your agent.

Your agent kept world rights. Some agents reserve the foreign language rights and only negotiate contracts for “first North American English Language rights” or some variation of that. That means they can sell each language separately. Often agents will attend the Bologna Book Fair. But sometimes, they work with a foreign agent, a well-respected agency for a certain country. In this case, agents generally split royalties with the foreign agent, so your agent may ask for a larger percentage of these type sales.

Your book contract does not include world rights, but you want to publish in another country. These days, you do have options for publishing in other countries yourself. For indie publishers, or if you are traditionally published, but you want to self-publish in another language, you can use a variety of services. For example, Kindle sells to France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan and India. Of course, this means you must have the book translated yourself and that may be daunting because it takes someone with specialized skill to translate a literary work. It’s not just a matter of straight translation, but of making the text sound as good in the second language as it does in English.

The biggest problem with a Kindle version is marketing. Once the book comes out (in English or the native language), how will you market it? Do you know enough about other country’s economies to know how to advertise and sell there? If you merely make it available, with no marketing, sales will dribble in and the project may not be worth your time invested.

IBooks, through itunesconnect.apple.com has one of the widest distribution systems. Using Apple’s free iBooksAuthor program, you can create an iBook version of your story, and upload it to 51 countries. Here’s my book, WISDOM, THE MIDWAY ALBATROSS on the IBookStore, which allows a download to your iPad. It is also available worldwide. Sounds cool to say that, doesn’t it? (Well–it’s only available in an English language translation, but hey, still sounds good.)

Just the logistics of translation and marketing in a foreign country scare off most authors. But–it is possible.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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The Publisher’s Marketplace tracks sales of manuscripts in different categories–one of the many advantages of their paid services. These sales are self-reported, which may or may not skew the results. These are the top literary agents for picture books for the last year. I have provided links to the agency’s websites when available. Please consult each agency’s policies on submission and follow them carefully.
To see details of the sales, you must be a member of Publisher’s Marketplace.

1. Erin Murphy (Erin Murphy Literary Agency)
   19 deals in the last 12 months
2. Holly McGhee (Pippin Properties)
   15 deals in the last 12 months
3. Kelly Sonnack (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)
   12 deals in the last 12 months
4. Paul Rodeen (Rodeen Literary Management)
   11 deals in the last 12 months
5. Jennifer Laughran (Andrea Brown Literary Agency) 11 deals in the last 12 months
6. Teresa Kietlinski (Prospect Agency)
   11 deals in the last 12 months
7. Ammi-Joan Paquette (Erin Murphy Literary Agency) 10 deals in the last 12 months
8. Karen Grencik (Red Fox Literary)
   10 deals in the last 12 months
9. Brenda Bowen (Sanford J. Greenburger Associates)
   9 deals in the last 12 months
10. Isabel Atherton (Creative Authors)
    9 deals in the last 12 months
11. Jamie Weiss Chilton (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)8 deals in the last 12 months
12. Lori Nowicki (Painted Words)
    8 deals in the last 12 months
13. Emily van Beek (Folio Literary Management)
    7 deals in the last 12 months
14. Stephen Barr (Writers House)
    7 deals in the last 12 months
15. Elena Mechlin (Pippin Properties)
    6 deals in the last 12 months
16. Elizabeth Harding (Curtis Brown)
    6 deals in the last 12 months
17. Steven Malk (Writers House)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
18. Edward Necarsulmer IV (McIntosh & Otis)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
19. Anna Olswanger (Liza Dawson Associates)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
20. Jennifer Rofe (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)
    5 deals in the last 12 months

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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When I teach writing, I realize that I make everything sound like it’s a straightforward process. Well, it’s not. Listen to Anne Lamott:

Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t–and in face, you’re not supposed to–know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing. Anne Lamott, novelist and essayist.

When we discuss writing, we separate out the voice, the character, the plot, the language used, etc. so we can actually find useful things to talk about. And there are many useful and helpful things to discuss. However, the actual writing is a combination of all these, a gestalt. The whole is greater than its parts.

It’s helpful to embrace uncertainty in the writing process, to just write and see what happens. Those of you who are outliners–who plot endlessly and have cards for every scene–you still have to just write. You’ve managed to remove one level of uncertainty, but there are still enough layers left to keep you on your toes. You still must make decisions on what details to include, what words will express the thoughts, and so much more.

For every sentence, there are numerous decisions to be made: the basic thought expressed, nuances of that thought, connecting the thought to what came before and what follow, the vocabulary, the sentence structure, and punctuation and spelling. Outliners only manage to eliminate the first choice and maybe ease the nuances and connections of the thought to other thoughts.

Every time you face the blank page, you face uncertainty. It’s a normal part of the writing process.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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What are kids–your audience–reading today?
“The Accelerated Reader Real Time database includes book-reading records for more than 8.6 million students from 27,240 schools nationwide who read more than 283 million books during the 2011-2012 school year.”

Renaissance Learning, the folks who do the Accelerated Reader program and testing, has just issued the 2013 report, “What Kids are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools.” It uses the data collected from millions of AR-reading tests to report on what kids have actually read this past year. Of course, the caveat is that these are also books they tested on, and therefore may not give the clearest picture of leisure reading. An AR-test must exist and a school must have it available for a student to test on the book; students often read books that they don’t test on.

Classics. Overwhelmingly, classics rule (think Dr. Seuss), followed by high-profile books, such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid. One interesting dataset lists the Caldecott and Newberry winners and shows their ranking among 1-5 graders. The Caldecott winners languish, with only three titles breaking into the top 100: Officer Buckle and Gloria at #17; Where the Wild Things Are at #20; The Polar Express at #50; and, The Snowy Day at #62.

For the Newbery Award winners, nothing before 1960 made it into the top 100 list for 6th-8th graders. However, they fared better, with twelve Newbery titles on the list: The Giver at #11; Number the Stars at #14; Holes at #17; Maniac Magee at #41; Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry at #40; Bud, Not Buddy at #43; Bridge to Terabithia at #47; Island of Blue Dolphins at #63; The Westing Game at #65; Walk Two Moons at #72; Out of the Dust at #95; and, A Wrinkle in Time at #96.

Overall, books that receive national exposure by being made into a movie were hits: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, rising from #210th most popular to #28 this year for third graders; The Help by Kathryn Stockett, from #1273 last year to #24 among high schoolers; and, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which had done well in high school and middle school in previous years, but this year jumped from #1478 to #24 in fourth grade and from #92 to #4 in fifth grade.

Text complexity in early 20th century for required reading in high school was about 9.0 ATOS, but has dropped to about 6.0 ATOS.

CCSS Exemplar texts were popular. The report states “. . .examining the popularity of the CCSS exemplars revealed that, although not intended to be used as a curriculum, almost all of the Informational Texts and Stories Exemplars were read by a slightly greater proportion of students in 2011-12 than the prior school year, suggesting the new standards may be influencing both curricular choices and less formal recommendations.”

These are fascinating pieces of data. The information is broken into favorites by grade and gender. You can also download these reports:

• Top 100 Nonfiction Books Read by ATOS Book Level Range, Grades 1-12
• Top 100 Fiction Books Read by ATOS Book Level Range, Grades 1-12
• Top 25 Spanish Books Read, Grades 1-12

Here’s an infographic from RenLearing.
Click to see full size. R-Click to save.

It would also be an interesting project to cross-reference this material with Scholastic’s 2013 Kids and Family Reading Report, which analyzes data from a survey of families about what kids are reading.

How Does the Top 100 List Affect Your Writing?

Backlist is your real competition. First, realize that your real competition for kids’ attention isn’t today’s books, but the backlist. In schools, it takes time for teachers to fall in love with your book, develop lesson plans and incorporate it into the culture. If you can write a book that passes that gauntlet, you’re likely to have real staying power. Winning a major award might help, but the majority of award winners, have fallen off the charts.

Humor rules. Really. If you read over the list of top 100 books for the younger grades, it’s humor all the way. From Dr. Seuss to Laura Numeroff, kids like funny books. Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey combined capture ten of the top 20 for fourth grade. You may not win the Newbery for a funny book, but you might find your place in the classroom.

Trade Books rule. And lest you think that means you should look to educational publishers, look again. Most of these titles are from trade publishers.

Teen Books. Write on a teen level. In 8th grade, The Outsiders still ranks #3. Maybe that’s because it gets assigned by teachers, but it’s still popular with kids.

Nonfiction Popular Books

Also available is the Top 100 list of nonfiction titles. Accelerated Reader’s strength isn’t nonfiction, but it’s still interesting to see what titles turned up.

Grades 1-3. Nature/animal books, biographies and titles related to English Language Arts (such as #12, Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What is an Adjective? by Brian P. Cleary) were most popular. For example, Penguin Chick was #1, The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle was #2, How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz was #3, and Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr by Doreen Rappaport was #4.

Grades 4-5. Biography and history edges out nature/animal books. For example, Finding the Titanic by Robert D. Ballard is #4, and Nights of the Pufflingsby Bruce McMillan is #9.

Grades 6-9. Biographies (including tales of faith)and history compete well at this level. Nature/animals lose traction, except for a few true tales or a few books on predators. Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo is at #2 and Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family and Fighting to Get back on the Board by Bethany Hamilton is #3. Seymour Simon’s book, Sharks is #18.

Grades 9-12. History dominates the top 100 list here. It’s true that Snakes by Kelly L. Barth is #2, but it’s the only nature/animal book listed until Snake by Chris Mattison at #86. At #3 is An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy, followed by the #4 title, 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War, by Phillip Caputo.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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You know you should try writing your story in first v. third point of view, but for some reason, you put it off. Why? Because you’ve gotten a first draft of a scene or chapter and you just want to keep going.

It’s exactly the feeling that elementary school children have: “Why do I have to revise?”


Your answer is straightforward: because you are a professional writer. Revising will help you write a book.

You must find the right way to tell this story. I often say that the purpose of a first draft is to find the story, but the purpose of all other drafts is to figure out the best way to TELL that story. Pros experiment, play, explore.

Here are some explorations of character that you can complete in an hour. Just set a time for 5-10 minutes and write something on each of these. If the prompt reveals nothing, drop it. But if it strikes a chord—keep going!

1. 1st v. 3rd. Write a scene using first person point of view and then rewrite it using third. If you want to play with present tense, feel free. Play!
2. Attitude. Choose a scene and look to see what attitude your main character has. Maybe, s/he comes in arrogant, sad, discouraged, or excited. At the top of your page/file, write the opposite attitude and write the scene again, working to make the character’s opposite attitude work.
3. Setting. Choose a scene and change the setting. If it’s in the kitchen, send your characters on a picnic. If it’s set on a spaceship, move the story to a cruise ship on the Mediterranean.
4. Write a Letter. Give your main character a reason to write a letter to someone. It could be written to a family member or to a Congressman. Let your character vent, rant and cry on paper.
5. Put something in your character’s hand. Put a physical object in your character’s hand. Perhaps a mother goes into a grown son’s room and picks up his old baseball glove and sits in a rocking chair and oils the glove and remembers something important about her son. Or, a grandmother is in the kitchen and getting ready to cook and pulls out an iron skillet. Write a couple paragraphs or a scene putting the object in the forefront.
6. Cubing is a way of exploring a topic by looking at it from different angles. I’ve chosen just four ways, but you can think of others.
   • Describe. Using the character’s voice (your choice of POV, tense, etc) describe something important in your story. Repeat with a different POV, tense, etc. if you have time.
   • Compare. Using the character’s voice, compare something in your story. Maybe you want to compare what the character thinks about his/her current situation with where s/he was ten days ago. Or compare two characters. Or compare today’s supper with yesterday’s supper. Any type of comparison that makes sense for your story is grist for this mill.
   • Associate. When your character thinks of roses, what does s/he think? This prompt asks you to enter your character’s point of view and make some associations. While most of your writing in a scene should be pointed, there are places where you can slow down and give the reader a glimpse of how the character’s mind works. When faced with X, s/he thinks of Y or Z.
   • Analyze. What will your character do next? Stop and let him/her analyze what has just happened, thinking about the ramifications of the actions or conversations. If s/he goes this direction, what will it mean for the rest of the story? What is an alternate direction and why should s/he choose that alternate? Analyze, then let the character decide on a plan of attack for the next section of the story.

Take the time to explore your story and your storytelling choices early in your drafting process. It will probably mean fewer drafts—and a stronger story. Great trade-offs for a mere hour of work.

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5thGradeReading.NET

We've just added 5thGradeReading.NET to our suite of GradeReading.NET sites! Find reviews of current fiction and nonfiction books, 740-1010L. Check out 5th grade book reviews now. Other sites:

• 2ndgradereading.net
• 3rdgradereading.net
• 4thgradereading.net

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I am interested in writing a nonficiton book and talked to an editor about the idea this week. She is interested. Hurrah!

But she needs a full proposal that includes a table of contents and a sample chapter. In other words, I have to do some–no, a lot–of work, on spec, before I get a contract. And then, it will be a ton of research to write the book. It’s daunting. To even be in the game, I have to do a lot of work.

I am inspired by Harrison Ford. In an article in the April, 2013 issue of American Way, Jan Hubbard reports on what Ford had to do to get the his latest role. Ford had read an early version of the screenplay for “42,” the new movie about Jacki Robinson’s entry into the world of baseball. Ford was intrigued by the role of Branch Rickey, the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who desegregated baseball by signing 26-year-old Jackie Robinson.

Director Brain Helgeland wasn’t interested in well-known actors for any of the parts. He wanted people to see the movie because they wanted to learn about Jackie Robinson; he didn’t want people to go to see another “Harrison Ford movie.”

Helgeland refused to even talk to Harrison Ford about the role. Ford was too big an actor.

“Nothing against him,” says Helgeland, who won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for L.A. Confidential in 1997. “He’s obviously a strong actor and a movie star and someone that movie fans int he country are really fond of, but I didn’t see how it could work. I didn’t see him playing a character.”

Now–what would you do, if you were Ford?
Move on to the next role? There are probably lots of directors courting him for their movies.

Instead, Ford went to work.
He studied his character, Branch Rickey. He found archival film of Rickey and listened to hours of audio tape. He read and re-read the script. He did his homework.

Then, and only then, did he insist on a meeting with Helgeland. (OK, he’s a big enough actor to get that meeting, but the rest of the story depends on his preparation work.)

During the conversation, Ford asked Helgeland how he saw a particular scene playing out, because there were two ways it might go.

Then, Ford broke into a private audition, complete with Rickey’s voice and mannerisms.

“Helgeland said, ‘He took on that Branch Rickey voice and he did the whole scene off the top of his head, so he obviously had memorized it,’ Helgeland says. ‘And I was sitting there saying, ‘Geez. He could really pull this off.’”

OK, Mr. Big Actor, Mr. Harrison Ford. If YOU can do that much prep to get a part, I can work hard for my proposal, my audition. I can do the research, create a viable Table of Content sna dwrite that sample chapter. And I will work hard enough to nail it. Because I want this book.

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5thGradeReading.NET

We've just added 5thGradeReading.NET to our suite of GradeReading.NET sites! Find reviews of current fiction and nonfiction books, 740-1010L. Check out 5th grade book reviews now. Other sites:

• 2ndgradereading.net
• 3rdgradereading.net
• 4thgradereading.net

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This past weekend, I attended the National Science Teachers Association conference and it was a great way to meet my audience. Here are some specific things that I thought were a benefit of attending.

Know Your Audience. This is a photo of the convention floor, the display booths. It’s interesting to wander the aisles and think like a science teacher. I try to imagine which of the booths I would stop at and why—what would they offer to a science teacher of various levels (elementary, middle school, high school). And then apply that to my books: what do my books offer to the same person? It’s a great way to get a feel for the overall needs of an audience of teachers.

Meet Your Editor. We often work long-distance with editors and a conference is a great way to meet them. Here are pictures of Sylvan Dell’s booth and staff.

Meet Your Peers. On the convention floor, in sessions and just schmoozing—it’s a great way to meet other authors. We talked about everything: publishing, astronomy, advances from various publishers, Common Core, wolf snails (see Sarah Campbell’s great book), and gross things that animals do (see Melissa Stewart’s great book).

Promote Your Book. I also had a chance to promote my book on the convention floor, and in a session about the Outstanding Science Trade Books. Desert Baths—and my other titles, Prairie Storms and Wisdom, the Midway Albatross—were well received and I was fascinated to see how science teachers talked about it and how they talked about using it in the classroom. This helps me to refine how I create future books.

Network. Before the conference, I emailed various editors to see who might be attending. I wound up with an appointment with one editor and pitched an idea. The result? An invitation to submit. Hurrah!

See the Sights.
The booth across the aisle from us was Sea World. They kept bringing in live animals: bald eagle, pink flamingo, echidna, Magellan Penguins, white spotted sharks. It was a fun place to be.

Just at dawn, when the birds were calling a greeting to the sun, we strolled by the Alamo. Remember the Alamo! And the NSTA-San Antonio conference.

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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!) Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.

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And What You Can Do to Prevent Rejection

It’s first and foremost about a well-written story. But after that, there are many reasons for a novel, picture book or early reader series to be rejected. These are real excerpts from real rejections I have received over the last eighteen months.

• Right editor, right manuscript; wrong timing.
  QUERY REJECTION: Thanks so much for sending me this query. It sounds fun, and definitely my kind of humor, but I’m afraid XXX actually has two different (same topic) series already in the near future, with enough books signed up that I fear this would be directly competing with them for a while. (Early chapter book series proposal)
• Wrong editor, wrong manuscript, wrong market because it isn’t a strong enough trade book.
  I appreciate and enjoy the heart you infuse to both characters here, and . . . I think you pull off both voices so that they’re fun and distinct. But. . . I feel like this story is still on the quiet side for our commercial-focused list; I see this book being a better fit for the school and library market, where teachers and librarians will appreciate the authentic portrayal of daily school life.
  (middle grade novel, contemporary).
• Right editor, right manuscript, wrong market because the book is too much of a trade book.
  I like your style. I like the topic. . . we do look for a pretty strong overlap of trade and education market material and for the education market that means a topic that is touched on by teachers. (Picture book, nonfiction.)
• Right editor, right manuscript, wrong market because the book isn’t strong enough for a trade book.
  I presented this project to my colleagues at our editorial meeting and while we agree the writing is strong, ultimately it’s just a bit too quiet for our list. (Picture book, fiction.)
• Right manuscript, wrong editor.
  Your writing and sense of detail are very nice, but I did not find myself compelled enough by the characters. (Middle grade novel, contemporary)
• Right manuscript, wrong editor.
  Picture book about a dog: This is such a fresh, creative idea, and you execute the story quite well. Even so, as much as I enjoyed the manuscript, I’m afraid I didn’t love it quite enough to move forward. Perhaps it’s because I’m more of a cat person ☺. (Picture book, fiction)
• Right editor, right manuscript. No broad-based support.
  I’ve shared it with two of other editors here, and we’ve had some good discussion around it. We all found it well-written and compelling. . . After some discussion, I’m afraid it’s a decline for us. (Middle grade novel, contemporary.)

Getting that Acceptance

In the end, you need a well-written, compelling story, sent to the right editor at the right time; and it must fit the market of the publisher, not slanted too much toward the trade market or the education market; and it must be a story that can find broad-based support.

It starts with your topic choice. I know editors will tell you to write what you are passionate about. But within those passions, look for topics that will also gain that broad-based support. NO! Your story will NOT be the exception. Problem-based stories for middle graders will probably not fly. If you feel compelled to write about the plight of 11 million children under the age of 18 who live with an alcoholic care-giver, make this a minor sub-plot. Definitely do not make it the main plot, because you will not find that broad-based support needed to produce a best-seller. Maybe for YA, but not for MG. Match your topic to the age of your audience.

Look, instead, for high-concept ideas. (Read this article, which is about high concept nonfiction but the principles apply to fiction, too.)

Know your market. There are trade markets and education markets and publishers who try to cross-market lines. Know where you are submitting and try to match up your story with the needs of the publisher. Remember, they are in the business of selling books and they have established channels for those sales. You must send them a story that will fit into THEIR market. They won’t do special marketing just for you.

Know the editor. Attend conferences, meet editors. It’s the only way you will find out what this or that editor likes. I had no idea that one editor I subbed to was a “cat person,” not a dog person. Maybe, I would have found that out from hearing her at a conference, maybe not. Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do but submit. But if you hear these sorts of things–well, I will definitely send this editor any cat stories I write. As much as it is in your control, get to know specific editors.

It’s a crazy world out there. Good stories, told with compelling voices, are not enough. To sell books, you must also appeal to a certain editor, who can then find a broad-based support across the publishing house for your story. You must also find a publisher whose market fits your type of stories. It’s not easy, but good solid market research is much more possible in these days when editors write blogs, there are dozens of conferences to attend, and there’s lots of info on Google and LinkedIn.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

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A narrative arc is a necessary part of fiction and is often a key component of nonfiction, especially narrative nonfiction. The arc indicates that there is some sort of progression.

Emotional Progression. The most common sort of progression is for the emotions to build to a climax. If two characters are arguing, the intensity, complexity and depth of the argument grows over the course of the story. It is mad, madder, maddest. If it is a verbal argument, it spills over into physical actions.

Character Progression. Similar to the first is the progression of a character through stages of change. This could be a change from doubt to faith, or loyalty to betrayal. The direction of the change can be in any direction, from moral to immoral or vice versa. The main thing is that there isn’t a steady state for the character, but there is change.

Plot Progression. This is partly the time-line of the story, but plot progression also implies that the events included int he story are intertwined in some way that leads to a bigger event or an event that means more than the previous events.

For narrative nonfiction, there can be other sorts of progressions, which will mimic or replace the narrative arc. Fiction writers will want to pay attention to these, too, because within a story, there may be places where some information would benefit from strategic organization. For example, my first picture book, THE RIVER DRAGON, had a series of descriptions of a dragon’s voice. Here’s the progression I used in which the metal mentioned became more base and the sounds became louder: a voice like the clink of copper coins, voice like the gong of a brass cymbal, and voice like a hammer on an iron anvil.

Here are some other options for progressions.

Time-line. The life and times of a scientist, for example, may be enough of an arc for some articles or simple books.





Physical progressions. For some nonfiction, it may be enough to organize the information around some physical characteristic. Perhaps discuss birds in order of size starting with the tiniest hummingbird and progressing through condors and other large birds. Or, you may discuss birds beaks and organize on that basis.

Logical progression. Often narrative nonfiction attempts to logically explain some issue. Here, the organization revolves around the logic of arguments, that of laying out the basic thesis and then providing supporting information.

Spatial progressions. Little used, but often effective, is a spatial progression. Here, you may describe the countryside to the north, then east, south and west. The progression may go from a person’s hat to their shoes.

When we write and readers read, we are looking for meaning, for coherence and cohesion. We want the writing to make sense of events, rather than a random collection of facts. Even browsable nonfiction imposes some sort of organization on facts, by grouping elephants on one page and mice on another. Look for narrative arcs and progressions to help you create the strongest organization possible.

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Guest Post by Melissa Donovan

When I first learned about alliteration in a writing class, I couldn’t believe there was a word for it. I used it in my poetry all the time! Then I learned about anastrophe and deus ex machina and I began to discover a whole world of literary devices and techniques.

Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds of accented syllables in a phrase: dancing dragons.

I discovered literary techniques that I’d seen in storytelling but hadn’t used in my own work. For example, anastrophe is when the usual word order of a sentence or phrase is reversed. One of the most famous characters in the movies speaks almost exclusively in anastrophe: Yoda doesn’t ask “Are you ready?” He says, “Ready are you?”

There were also literary devices that I’d neither noticed nor used. Deus ex machina is when a character or event is suddenly introduced in a narrative for convenience. For example, when all the main characters are trapped and some long-lost cousin who has never been mentioned suddenly appears and rescues them, this is deus ex machina, and it’s usually seen as a cheap way to resolve a sticky situation.

What Are Literary Devices and Techniques?

So what are literary devices and what applications do they have for writers?
Wikipedia defines a literary device as follows: “A literary technique (also known as literary device) is any standardized method an author uses to convey his or her message.” According to Wikipedia, this can include foreshadowing, flashbacks, and plot twists, things we all recognize as elements of storytelling.

I’ve found some resources that make a distinction between storytelling techniques, which deal with the structure of a story, and language techniques, which deal with how we choose and use words.

Understanding and Identifying Literary Devices and Technique

Have you ever come across a word, phrase, or sentence that mesmerized you, but you couldn’t figure out why? It might have been a line of dialogue that stuck with you or a compelling scene in a story. You know there’s a reason it was so effective but you can’t put your finger on it.

In these cases, there’s a good chance a literary device or technique is at play. And if you can identify these devices and techniques, you’ll gain a better understanding of how to make the best possible decisions in your own writing.

For example, we all know there are a dozen ways to write a sentence. If we’re trying to choose the right word for a sentence and there are several to choose from, we might make our decision based on a literary device.
Let’s look at an example. In the sentences below, would you choose the word store or market?

I have to stop by the store.
I have to stop by the market.

I would probably choose store because of the alliteration that occurs with the words stop and store.

While this is something a lot of writers do naturally—choose a word because it’s the one that sounds the best—it’s immensely helpful to have a more concrete reason, to know that you’re choosing a phrase because it applies alliteration rather than “just because it sounds good.”

When we adopt literary devices and techniques into our vocabularies, we can talk about writing, language, and story more efficiently and intelligently.

Using Literary Devices in Your Work

Let’s say you’re working on a novel and trying to polish a sentence that’s giving you trouble. You’re looking for the right word—the perfect word. If you have studied literary devices, then they are at your disposal and can help you make smarter choices about which words and phrases to use.

Literary techniques can also be immensely helpful in storytelling. When I’m working on a story and get stuck, I often turn to a list of storytelling techniques to see if any of those techniques could help me get unstuck. I almost always find a solution, something that propels me past whatever obstacle I’m facing.

Literary devices and techniques are valuable tools that we can use to better understand literature. By applying these concepts to our own writing projects, we can strengthen our work and make it more compelling.

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Fiction Notes has posted before on How to Use Words: 8 Literary Devices, How to Arrange Words: 20 Literary Devices and How Winston Churchill Used Literary Devices. (That’s 28 literary devices to study and use in your next piece of writing!)

About the Author: Melissa Donovan is the founder and editor of Writing Forward, a blog packed with creative writing tips and ideas. She has also authored a book of creative writing exercises and works as a web designer and copywriter.

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When writing a novel, one common admonishment is to keep in mind the goal of entertaining the reader. Fiction’s purpose is to entertain; non-fiction’s purpose is to inform. But the lines between the two can often blur, as when non-fiction uses narrative techniques.

This week, I’ve been reading Cory Doctorow’s book, For the Win and he uses info dumps like crazy, putting in lots of technical discussions, potentially boring information. He does it–and it works? What is he doing right?

Story comes first. For the Win is first and foremost a wide-ranging global story of online gaming and how the workers across the world join together to fight for better working conditions. There’s a strong plot, strong goal and an interesting series of developments.

Interesting characters. Doctorow also pulls together a fascinating cast of characters, drawn from the four corners of the globe. There’s the uneducated, but smart Indian girl from the slums, a disillusioned teen from California, Worker activist from Singapore, determined striker from China, and equally fascinating radio personality from the Pearl Delta of China. They are all fleshed out with real-world needs, wants, goals, and their individual circumstances come alive.

Setting. For each character, their setting is particularized with specific sensory details. You get spicy chai and well-water in an Indian slum juxtaposed with the luxury of a wealthy California home.

In short, Doctorow tells a stirring, interesting tale.

But he goes a step farther. As long as he has your attention, he wants you to know something about the online gaming world. If you look at the top ten world economies, many of them are virtual worlds and economies of an online game. Sometimes, he stops and gives an info dump on economics, gaming rules, worker unions and so on. And sometimes, he has one character ask another to explain something.

For example, the Indian girl who is such a great gamer they call her General is uncertain about economics. She asks the college-graduate economist to explain something, then because the General dosen’t understand the complicated economics, the Economist explains further, in simpler terms.

It works. Really, it shouldn’t work, it’s an info dump and at that point of the novel, Doctorow is just trying to teach me–the reader–something about economics. (I am denser than the General sometimes!) And I don’t mind a bit. I keep reading. Because in the context of the exciting story, I don’t mind a bit of explanation, in fact, it adds to the enjoyment of the story, because I understand motivations and the worker’s dilemmas better. Doctorow makes me root for the worker’s revolution because I understand it better.

If I was just reading about economics, my eyes would glaze over. Reading this novel, though, I am fascinated and I try harder to understand. It matters because he’s made me like the General and hope that her life gets better.

Likewise, if you need another example of how an info dump works well in a novel, read Doctorow’s book, Little Brother.

Go ahead: break the rules and give us an info dump in your novel. But please–tell a story first.

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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!) Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.

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I’ve been reading manuscripts lately and one thing keeps jumping out at me: dialogue that is too perfect. It’s grammatically correct, perfectly punctuated. And totally unreal.

Characters don’t talk that way. Kid-characters, especially, in the midst of an exciting bowling tournament or soccer or other sports games do NOT talk in complete sentences.

Use Sentence Fragments for Realistic Dialogue

You must get over the fear of sentence fragments in order to write believable dialogue. Really. Right now. Commit to at least one sentence fragment on every page of your manuscript, just for practice.

Here’s an example from Clementine, Friend of the Week by Sara Pennypacker:
(p.6)

“What does that stand for, M.V.P.?” I asked.
Margaret scratched her head like she was fake-remembering. “Oh, right! Moron-Villain-Pest,” she said. “He wins it every year. No competition.”

That is three sentence fragments: Oh, right! Moron-Villain-Pest. No competition.

What if Pennypacker had filled out those sentences?

“Oh, you are right! M.V.P. means Moron-Villain-Pest. He wins it every year. There is no competition.”

That is clumsy to read, more boring, and destroys the voice of the novel. Sentence fragments work better here to keep the rhythm, keep the pace interesting and maintain the ironically-innocent voice of Clementine.

Sentence fragments also allow the writer to put emphasis where needed to direct the reader’s attention. Here, the emphasis is on the definition of M.V.P and how well the M.V.P fulfills his role. No competition.

Are you struggling with believable dialogue? Look at writers like Elmore Leonard, David Mamet and Woody Allen.

What authors do you admire for their dialogue?

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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!) Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.

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My picture book, WISDOM, THE MIDWAY ALBATROSS is now available as in iBook. To access it, you must go to the iBook app on your iPhone or iPad. Then, search for the iBook. Or, click here to be taken to the page on iTunes.

Do you want your book to sell as an ebook? Here are some of the things you must consider.

Ebooks on Multiple Platforms

First, there is an industry-wide ePub standard. But almost no one goes by it. This means that you can put your book up as an ePub, but you’ll have to tweak the files for each and every platform you want to put it on.

The easiest method is to work with Smashwords, which allows ePubs now, or has a MeatGrinder to convert files. You will most definitely want to read Smashwords owner Mark Coker’s Smashwords File Guide. It is a simple explanation of the variables involved in formatting your book. Smashwords has multiple distributions and many people just upload it here and let Smashwords take care of distribution to these platforms: Sony, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker & Taylor Blio, Library Direct, Baker & Taylor, and Axis 360 . But others prefer to move on to other platforms themselves.

Nook: You can upload your ePub documents to Nook at pubit.barnesandnoble.com.
Their process has a built in viewer so you can see what your book will look like on these devices.

Kindle: Go to the kdp.amazon.com program and set up an account to get started. Kindle formatting is not ePub and you must convert your files. KDP allows for distribution on Amazon stores in multiple countries: Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and India. Of course, if you want it in different languages, you must translate it yourself, then upload the translated files.

Kobo: Not a new player, but one to take notice of now, Kobo recently signed a deal with the Independent Booksellers to make Kobo the preferred platform in your local indie. They are working together to promote books in new and fresh ways. The Kobo App is available on almost any platform. You can get on Kobo through Smashwords, or by directly uploading to them. They accept an ePub format and will convert it as needed to their format.

Apple iBooks: The strange thing about Apple’s iBook platform is its limitations. iBooks is an app for iPhone or iPad, but there’s no app for Android, desktop Macs, or other platforms. Sales go through the iBookstore, which is part of iTunes. Some argue that iBooks won’t take off until they pull the books out of iTunes. The real advantage of Apple is their international reach, which allows you to put your book into 52 different countries. Again, you must translate yourself; if you only put up English, you may get some sales, but it won’t take off. Apple provides free software, IBookAuthor, which allows you to embed audio and video and is generally touted as a boon to textbook writers. Of course, that just increases your copyright headaches, as you must make sure you have permissions for all images, sounds, music, video, multimedia, etc. But it’s totally cool to include video. I put an introductory video on the new Wisdom iBook. If you have ePub files, they may work on Apple’s platform, but you can’t get around the requirement that you use a Mac Computer to upload at iTunesConnect .

There are other platforms, of course. Vook touts their video-embedded ebooks, while other platforms have other specialties.

PDF Ebooks. Technically not an ePub, but still often referred to as an ebook, are pdf versions of your book. You can sell these from your website through a sales management site such as ejunkie.com. It allows you to upload your files, then handles the transaction and sends a notice to the buyer when the financial transaction is finished, so they can download their file. Goodreads.com also allows you to sell pdf

Software to Create EPubs

What a tangled web there is when you consider converting your book to ePub!
First, most of the major platforms will convert for you. But you’ll want to create the ePub first. Here are some options.

Adobe Indesign. The premiere book/publishing layout and design software from Adobe has made it easier than ever to convert to an ePub. Indesign CS6 allows for flexible layouts, so you can create both portrait and landscape versions of your book for the tablet requirements. Many magazines use Indesign and create the flexible layouts to publish. You can export in a digital format, too, which should meet ePub requirements. The cost of Adobe products continues to escalate and they update so often that it is outdated quickly; therefore, they now offer a monthly subscription that I am reluctantly moving to.

Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite is not the same thing; it is used more by magazine publishers than book publishers, and by iPad app developers. This is because through this software, you can upload to the Apple App store, but NOT to the Apple book store. Think carefully where you want to sell your product when you choose your Adobe software. Do you want an app (DPS) or an ebook(InDesign)?

Apple’s iBookAuthor. On the other hand, Apple’s price is right: free. iBooksAuthor is one of the easiest, most-intuitive programs to use, but it comes with a major disadvantage. When you create an ebook with this software, you may sell it on Apple’s iBookstore and no where else. This means you will probably do a separate version just for them. The biggest advantage of Apple is that you can sell to 52 countries. And Apple seems to me to be a sleeping giant: if they ever decide to push ebooks, like they do music and video, look out.

Sigil. Open software, Sigil lets you look at the inside of your ePub and–if you are brave and knowledgable–make changes.

Calibre. A desktop ebook reader and editor, Calibre allows you to edit the metadata, add a book cover and convert to some formats. A free, open-source program, it’s useful to have around.

My Workflow

Well, to be honest, it changes every time I get ready to do this, because the development of software, platforms and everything about ebooks changes so rapidly. But in general, what I’ve done is to layout a book in InDesign, then export as an ebook and as a pdf. In Sigil, I can change anything I need to on the “guts” of the ebook. I use that for Smashwords, Kindle, and Nook. I’ll use it for Kobo next time, too, since their connection to Independent Bookstores has raised their profile. I use the pdf with ejunkie.com to sell on my own site.Then, I do a completely new version in iBookAuthor for Apple. Such a pain. Hard to keep track.

At times, I have also hired someone to convert to the standard ePub, then done any tweaking needed for a different format. I’ll be so glad when everyone abides by a given standard! Right now, the biggest drawback to ePubs is the fragmented platforms and their individual requirements.

Helpful books

Elizabeth Castro rocks. Essentially, an ePub is a set of images and text that are put into an html file, controlled by a CSS (cascading style sheets) file, and then zipped into one file. This means that if you mess with the guts of the ePub, you need advice from someone who understand html and css and can explain it in relatively simple terms. Elizabeth Castro has a suite of books that does just this.

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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!) Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.

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When we sit in our caves and write or create art, we wonder if we can have any real world benefits. Yes! Two organizations are creating awareness of conservation needs and making real world contributions.

Authors for Earth Day

For the second year, I’ll be doing a school visit this April and donating a percentage of my speaking fee to a conservation organization. Authors for Earth Day, the brainchild of Brooke Bessesen, encourages authors to bring the issues of conservation to children during the month of April, because Earth Day is April 22. Students are presented with information on five conservation organizations and vote on where they want the money sent in the school’s and the author’s name.

To date, through the efforts of committed authors, $15,750 have been donated toward conservation. Wow!

Artists for Conservation

Paralleling the efforts of authors, is the Artists for Conservation, an international organization of wildlife, nature and science artists. Kitty Harvill, the illustrator of WISDOM, THE MIDWAY ALBATROSS, has just been named the recipient of the AFC Monthly Conservation Artist Award. The Award is made each month to a member of our group who has demonstrated a combination of artistic excellence and who has made an outstanding contribution to the conservation cause. We hope the extra exposure will put Wisdom’s story in front of even more children. See more of Kitty’s wildlife art at her blog or on her Facebook page.

If you can’t see this video, click here.

Find Your Own Cause

Maybe, your interests don’t lie in wildlife conservation, but in helping battered mothers and children, or in adult literacy, or another of the pressing issues of our times. Of course, our work is meant to be first and foremost, a literary piece or a work of art. But we also know that art can serve the purposes of a cause when necessary.

Is this a conflict?
I don’t think so. I am working on a new nature project and I know that the scientists involved know much more about the endangered animals than I ever will. Yet, I also know that I can tell a stirring story, one that captures the imaginations and hearts of children. This is also a valuable skill. While I write with a literary purpose, the content of the story is also conveying important information. We don’t write in a vacuum.

Find the places where your passions and your literary or artistic talents can combine. Make a difference, one book at a time.

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A cat says ________.
A dog says________.
A skunk says______. (We don't know!) Watch this video to hear a skunk, a ground hog, a bison and more.

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Withholding information

When a reader first opens your novel or story and reads the first line, the first paragraph, have you welcomed the reader and tried to put them at ease? It is imperative to invite the reader into a story in a way that puts them at ease. This means clarity must rule. The reader must never question where the story is taking place, or what—exactly—is happening in this scene. You do not have to spill all the backstory at this point—that doesn’t work. But the reader should know when, where and who and a hint of why.

Setting. The setting should be clear and specific, with sensory details appropriately sprinkled throughout the opening scene. This includes information on the geographic location, time frame (e.g. 6th century BC or 2017A.D), and something about the emotional territory.

Character. In the opening pages, the reader should meet a character that intrigues. Please, don’t name five characters on page one and expect the reader to stay oriented. Instead, give each important character a grand entrance. The inner life of the main character should start to come alive, as well. What does s/he fear, love, long for?

Cautions: The worse drafts hide information, wrongly believing that just giving a hint here or there is the best strategy. Instead, the reader becomes confused and closes the book, never to open it again. The great sff writer Orson Scott Card wisely said, “The only thing to withhold is what happens next.” Within the context of a scene, this is exactly right. The reader should understand exactly what is going on—and be so enthralled that s/he turns the page to find out “what happens next.”
Don’t use this as an excuse to include backstory, though! Backstory comes ONLY at the point at which it will create an emotional crisis in a reader. Instead, when the reader is deep within a scene, they should only care about what happens next.

Voice is too formal

In the search for a great voice, some writers fall back on their English class and write too formally. Great fiction is informal writing. This means you can use slang, jargon, curse words (when appropriate), incomplete sentences, sentence fragments. You can, and should, interrupt someone when they are speaking. Characters can be rude. A great novel is not a tea party! Stop being so polite, so formal.

Try making up rules for yourself–play with the formality of your novel; keep what works and discard the rest. Don’t like my rules? Make up your own. But play!

• For every ten sentences, you must use a sentence fragment.
• You must use one slang/jargon word per page.
• You will write one section of dialogue (about 10 exchanges) and every bit of dialogue is incomplete sentences.
• In every chapter, someone must be rude.

Boring

Yawn. What happened in this chapter?
Nothing.
Then, why is the reader turning pages?
They aren’t!
A good exercise is to go through each chapter and write one sentence that summarizes what happens. Something important must develop or change in some way in every single chapter. Novelists do not have the luxury to stop and give us back story or tell every single detail of the setting. You must pick and choose from among the myriad of details, bits of dialogue, actions, thoughts and arrange them in an exciting, fascinating, intriguing order.

Stoic Character

For every action, your main character should have an emotional reaction. Why else is the reader following this character around? OK. Not every single action. But it’s a good exercise to try: underline the actions, and circle the main character’s emotional reaction to what just happened. How do they correlate? Do we have 100 actions and only one emotional reaction? Where ever you are on the continuum from no emotional reaction to 100% emotional reactions, evaluate it in terms of your character, your novel. Is the reader getting enough of your MC’s inner life to keep turning the pages? From my experience as a first reader, most novelists err on the side of not enough emotion. If this is hard for you, push yourself toward too much emotion and you may wind up about right.

Balance

Writing a novel is a continual decision-making process. For each detail you might include, there are dozens of great ways to put that into words. We go from words to sentences to paragraphs—and each word selection carries connotations and denotations. It’s complex! The variety of ways to tell a story are amazing. What scenes do you include/exclude, and why? What character is the main character? The point of view character?

Throughout the process of writing a novel, it’s a balancing act all the way. We walk a tightrope upon which we build a story. One misstep and the reader falls off.
This is one of the main reasons why first pages go wrong. 90% of a story may be working, until a sentence here, a word there, a questionable emotion in the midst of the scene—and the reader puts the book down. Fine tuning the novel is crucial. Here is where first readers can really help, by marking the places that are “off.” Even if they can’t articulate WHY this section is OFF, they know it when they read it. You don’t want an English teacher marking up the story with red marks. You want a sensitive reader saying, nope, this doesn’t fit. Don’t know why, just know it doesn’t fit.

It’s a matter of balance: every word must belong. Nothing must be out of place. The reader must keep turning pages with no interruptions in the flow.

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