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Today we are starting at the very basics of character -- the primary versus the secondary characters.

Which have your read?  I've read all of HP and only the first 2 in CB.

Just like in real life, the book world has your A-list, B-list, C-list, etc. characters.  And no, I don't mean the difference between Harry Potter and Charlie Bone.  (Both are wizards at school in series put out in America by Scholastic.  One is a household name, the other is less known, a B-lister if you will.)  Here, I'm talking about the A-list (or primary) characters and the B, C, and D-list (or secondary) characters in your story.

Your primary characters are the leads in your story.  These always include your protagonist and may include your antagonist (if there is only one or a primary antagonist).  Your primary character may or may not be your narrator.  However, your primary character is, literally, the most important character in the story.  This is the person that wants or needs something, and the entire story will be about that character trying to fill this want or need.

Some memorable primary characters:

• Olivia (picture book)
• Amelia Bedelia (early reader)
• Clementine (chapter book)
• Calpurnia Tate (middle grade)
• Sabriel (teen)

(For some reason all female characters popped into my head first thing, but of course there are many memorable male primary characters.)

Books can also have multiple primary characters.  This occurs when there is a shared protagonist or you can think of it as the book having an ensemble cast.

Some great examples of books with multiple protagonists:

• Toot & Puddle (picture book)
• Frog & Toad (easy reader)
• Magic Tree House (Jack & Annie) (chapter book)
• The Penderwicks (middle grade)
• 13 Reasons Why (teen)

If you don't have a strong, compelling primary character (or characters), you aren't going to have a good story.  These people (or pigs or dogs or whatever) have to provide the motivation for the reader to keep turning the page.  Of course, the way you can help explore your characters is through their interactions with secondary characters, which we will talk about tomorrow.

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So, I'm happy at the way the new Buried in the Slush Pile Forum is working.  The layout is clear (if unexciting), and it's easy to find all of the different people who want feedback on their various summaries.  Best of all, the ones I haven't viewed yet are marked as new, so I don't miss anyone.  I also can't argue with the free price tag.  Supposedly there should be ads running around somewhere, but I haven't seen any.

A few people have started posting their summaries, and the feedback they've been getting has been great.  No one has said anything I wouldn't, and some of my comments have just seemed superfluous.  We're going to keep working on these through Sunday, so if you haven't posted anything yet, there's still plenty of time.  On Monday, though, we'll be moving on.

But as great as the forum has been for critiquing, I've been wondering, what else could we use the forum for?

One idea I had was to have a board on there dedicated to submissions.  We could have a thread on that board that could deal with who/where is accepting submissions and a link to the place's submission guidelines.  As you run across someone accepting (or no longer accepting) submissions, you could add it to this thread.  We could also have a thread profiling editors and agents so that when you go to figure out where to submit, you would have some names and editorial preferences to see if your work would fit that person's tastes.  I'm actually working on a (free) manuscript submissions workbook that I'll be debuting in the next few weeks that has a worksheet like that.

What ideas do you have for the forum?  I am open to any and all suggestions.

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Just like queries and cover letters and even manuscript submissions, everyone does book proposals a little bit differently, especially in the children's book industry.   Since fiction children's book editors rarely see full out book proposals, we don't really have a hard and fast standard.  So, like when you are querying or submitting to an editor, you should find out what their specific book proposal guidelines are.  After all, some people might like to see a synopsis for each chapter of the book while others might be content with a one page summary.

However, on this blog we are going to discuss the most common, and in my opinion, most important parts of a book proposal.  They are:

• Cover Letter
• One Page Overview
• Series Overview
• Chapter Summaries (or Outline)
• Potential Markets for the Book
• Author Biography
• Promotion/Marketing Plans/Opportunities
• First 3 Chapters (occasionally full MS)
• SASE (if physical submission)

Next week I'll do general overviews into each of these parts, and then the week after that, we'll get into the nitty-gritty or actually working on each individual part.  (Instead of book proposals, tomorrow I'm posting a status update on the picture book submissions.)

And, if you would like to read ahead, so to speak, everything I learned about book proposals came from this fantastic book, Author 101 Best Selling Book Proposals.  A few years ago I needed to put together a nonfiction, adult book proposal for a freelance client, and this book was a wealth of knowledge.

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Ah, it's March.  And that makes me think of spring (it's firmly spring here), basketball, green beer, and book proposals.

Wait, what?

Okay, so March doesn't inherently make me think of book proposals.  I'm not sure any time of year particularly inspires that line of thought.  And frankly as a children's book editor of fiction books, book proposals rarely cross my mind at all.  After all, you will rarely need to write out a book proposal for a fiction book, and there are many well-established children's authors who have never written one at all.

And that, my friends, is a shame.

A book proposal is one of the best ways to get to know your book, I mean really get to know your book.  An invite-your-book-back-to-your-place-for-a-drink kind of way to know your book.  To "know" it in the "biblical" sense.  By the time you have finished every section of a book proposal, there's not much about your book you haven't considered.  And looking at your book in this kind of detail can only help you make it stronger.

Besides, a book proposal is the perfect project while waiting to hear back from critiquers with your first draft.  It allows you to continue working on your current project without obsessively revising.  (Remember what I said about over-revising yesterday?)

So, I propose that we spend this glorious month of March dedicated to all things book proposals.  We will discuss every aspect of the proposal, we will practice proposals, and in the end we will have a grand contest (details of which I have not thought out yet, only just now having had this scathingly brilliant idea) with 5 Grand Prize winners recieving the chance to submit their book proposals to me for critiquing and to CBAY for official consideration.  (In other words you'll submit to CBAY, and if I reject the project, I'll provide feedback.)

Sound good?

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New #illustration. Peek at each stage in the process. Here you see #thumbnails of the #illustration idea.

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Boyds Mills Editor Larry Rosler calls to check on story book process.

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Children’s writers, librarians, and book lovers may be interested in listening to Book Bites For Kids–an online radio show. You can go and listen any time.

You may be especially interested in tuning in this week, where every day this week you can phone in or email a question of children’s book editor Harold Underdown. Harold Underdown hosts the site The Purple Crayon, and has a wealth of knowledge about children’s books and writing.

Harold will be interviewed by Suzanne Lieurance at 2 PM Central time, but you can listen in any time.

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Chad Stephenson, San Francisco Friends School librarian, has been working on an extensive school project about Diwali, the Hindu winter Festival of Light, celebrated on November 9 this year. In a ‘personal views’ piece he’s contributed to the PaperTigers website, Chad gives us the scoop on the celebration of Rama’s victorious return from Lanka with his kidnapped wife, Sita. His article is chock full of great Diwali reading recommendations, including Uma Krishnaswami’s award-winning Monsoon, illustrated by Jamel Akib, and Hanuman, by Erik Jendresen and Joshua M. Greene, illustrated by Li Ming. Here’s a PaperTigers review of another book on Chad’s list.

Canadian Rachna Gilmore’s Lights for Gita isn’t on his list, but it will shed yet more light on the Diwali’s real meaning: Gita’s difficulties settling into her life in Canada are exemplified by not being able to celebrate the holiday the same way she would have back home.

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