I love this window at the Library Center in Springfield, Missouri:

Also, you should go take this twitter poll:

Should I write another couple of Uglies books?

— Scott Westerfeld (@ScottWesterfeld) May 4, 2016

The New York Teen Author Festival is here, and I am in it.

For the next ten days, over a hundred authors will be appearing at a dozen venues across New York City. Come join us for a cavalcade of signings, discussions, and readings. (And one rock band.)

Click here for the full schedule!

These are the bits I’m in:

Thursday, March 17
SPINE OUT
Dixon Place, 161 Christie Street
7PM

NYCTAF is proud to be a part of a new series, SPINE OUT, where novelists read personal essays. David Arnold, Jessica Brody, VC Chickering, Emmy Laybourne, David Levithan, Scott Westerfeld. Hosted by Emmy Laybourne.

(Note: All other events are free, but Spine Out is ticketed. $13 exclusively for the festival attendees! Use code “NYTAF” at Dixonplace.org.)

Saturday, March 19
What Can YA Do About It?
42nd Street NYPL
Barton Forum
1:10-1:40PM

Kicking off the NYTAF Symposium, a discussion of how YA literature (and literature in general) can help social change, and the role this plays in works across a variety of genres. Michael Buckley, Donna Freitas, IW Gregorio, Brendan Kiely, Daniel José Older, Marie Rutkoski, Scott Westerfeld. Moderator: David Levithan

Sunday, March 20
No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing
Books of Wonder
18 W. 18th St. NY, NY 10011
1-4pm

I’ll be signing at the 1PM segment, but look at everyone else who’s showing up. Just look at them!

1:00-1:30
Jeff Zentner (The Serpent King, RH)
Allen Zadoff (I Am the Traitor, LB)
Nicola Yoon (Everything, Everything, RH)
Liza Wiemer (Hello?, Spencer Hill)
Alecia Whitaker (The Road to You, LB)
Scott Westerfeld (Zeroes, S&S)
Sandra Waugh (Silver Eve, RH)
Will Walton (Anything Could Happen, Scholastic)
Len Vlahos (Scar Girl, Bloomsbury)
Amalie Howard (The Fallen Prince, Sky Pony)
Andrea Cremer (The Conjurer’s Riddle, Penguin)
Sharon Cameron (Rook, Scholastic)

1:30-2:00
Tommy Wallach (Thanks for the Trouble, S&S)
Sharon Biggs Waller (The Forbidden Orchid, Penguin)
Jessica Spotswood (Tyranny of Petticoats, Candlewick)
Sarvenaz Tash (Three Day Summer, S&S)
Lindsay Smith (Dreamstrider, Macmillan)
Natasha Sinel (The Fix, Sky Pony)
Adam Silvera (More Happy Than Not, Soho)
Tiffany Schmidt (Hold Me Like a Breath, Bloomsbury)
Gavriel Savit (Anna and the swallow Man, RH)
Lance Rubin (Denton Little’s Death Date, RH)

2:00-2:30
Emily Ross (Half in Love with Death, Merit)
Sharon Huss Roat (Between the Notes, HC)
Randy Ribay (An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes, Merit)
Rajdeep Paulus (Soaring Through Stars, Birch House)
Suzanne Myers (I’m from Nowhere, Soho)
Hannah Moskowitz (A History of Glitter and Blood, Chronicle)
Kass Morgan (The 100: Homecoming, LB)
Meredith Moore (I Am Her Revenge, Penguin)
Goldy Moldavsky (Kill the Boy Band, Scholastic)
Lisa Maxwell (Unhooked, S&S)

2:30-3:00
Carolyn Mackler (Infinite In Between, HC)
Barry Lyga (After the Red Rain, LB)
Sarah Darer Littman (Backlash, Scholastic)
David Levithan (Another Day, RH)
Kerry Kletter (The First Time She Drowned, Penguin)
Brendan Kiely (All-American Boys, HC)
Kody Keplinger (Lying Out Loud, Scholastic)
Beth Kephart (This is the Story of You, Chronicle)
Lee Kelly (A Criminal Magic, S&S)
AR Kahler (Shades of Darkness, S&S)

3:00-3:30
Cordelia Jensen (Skyscraping, Penguin)
IW Gregorio (None of the Above, HC)
Lauren Gibaldi (The Night We Said Yes, HC)
Amy Ewing (The White Rose, HC)
Robin Epstein (H.E.A.R., Soho)
Jaclyn Dolamore (Glittering Shadows, Hyperion)
Katelyn Detweiler (Immaculate, Penguin)
Tara Crowl (Eden’s Wish, Hyperion)

3:30-4:00
Zoraida Cordova (Vast and Brutal Sea, Sourcebooks)
Susane Colasanti (City Love, HC)
Sona Charaipotra (Tiny Pretty Things, HC)
Selene Castrovilla (Signs of Life, Last Syllable)
Jessica Brody (Unchanged, Macmillan)
Martina Boone (Persuasion, S&S)
Patty Blount (Nothing Left to Burn, Sourcebooks)
Lisa Amowitz (Until Beth, Spencer Hill)
Ami Allen-Vath (Liars and Losers Like Us, Sky Pony)

As most of you know, my latest series is Zeroes, a trilogy about teens with superpowers, which I cowrote with Margo Lanagan and Deb Biancotti.

You can read the first seven chapters here, and find reviews and buy buttons here.

Today I’m happy to share with you the awesome US cover of book 2, which is called Swarm! (Out in Sep/Oct 2016.)

Pretty cool, huh? I like the way it doubles down on the lurid color scheme of the first cover.

Here’s the (slightly spoilery) book description:

They thought they’d already faced their toughest fight. But there’s no relaxing for the reunited Zeroes.

These six teens with unique abilities have taken on bank robbers, drug dealers and mobsters. Now they’re trying to lay low so they can get their new illegal nightclub off the ground.

But the quiet doesn’t last long when two strangers come to town, bringing with them a whole different kind of crowd-based chaos. And hot on their tails is a crowd-power even more dangerous and sinister.

Up against these new enemies, every Zero is under threat. Mob is crippled by the killing-crowd buzz—is she really evil at her core? Flicker is forced to watch the worst things a crowd can do. Crash’s conscience—and her heart—get a workout. Anon and Scam must both put family loyalties on the line for the sake of survival. And Bellwether’s glorious-leader mojo deserts him.

Who’s left to lead the Zeroes into battle against a new, murderous army?

Turns out I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Of course, I recently wrote a book in which a young Wrimo gets published, Afterworlds, and I’ve been close to the NaNo organization for a while. (I’m on their Writers Board, and here’s a pep talk I did for them.) But I’ve never technically done NaNo itself—writing the first draft of a novel in November.

But now I have this secret project due in early December, and I see that it’s a few days before Halloween. It’s all coming together! So I’ll be posting my word count and chugging along with the rest of you.

If you want to know more about the concept and the organization, click here.

Need some inspiration in telling your own story? Here’s NaNo’s Sarah Mackey speaking at NerdCon about why stories matter:

Zeroes is officially published TODAY in the US and Canada! It’s already out in Australia and the UK, so YOU CAN BUY IT IN ALL THE SHOPS. (See below for help with that.)

A few cool things:

My co-authors and I are on tour NOW. Click here for event details!

You can read the first seven chapters of Zeroes on Wattpad.

Here’s a sample of the audiobook, read by the lovely and talented Amber Benson:

Here’s an interview with me, Margo, and Deb on ABC Radio National.

MTV News did an interview with me, and released the character illustration of Crash. Click here to see. (And here are the illustrations for Flicker and Scam.)

And finally, a ridiculous number of buy buttons:

HARDCOVER
IndieBound
B&N
Amazon
Books-a-Million
S&S

AUDIOBOOK
Audible
iTunes
Amazon CD
Amazon Audible

EBOOK
Amazon Kindle
Apple iBooks
B&N
Google Play
S&S

More character illustrations coming soon!

I’m still on tour! Click here for details!

And now, here’s the second of six character illustrations by Jennie Gyllblad for my latest book, Zeroes.

His real name is Ethan, but his code name is Scam:

Click here for bigness

Omnisciently Manipulative Voice
Scam isn’t very good at speaking for himself, because he’s always had the voice to speak for him. He just opens his mouth, and it starts talking, saying whatever it needs to get Scam what he wants.

Alas, it doesn’t think very far ahead.

Here’s a passage from Zeroes:

      The guy walked with a steady purpose. He had an army-green duffel bag over one shoulder. Ethan let himself drift into his way until the bag slapped against him.
      ”Hey, watch it!” he said in his own voice.
      The guy spun to face him. He was a few inches shorter than Ethan, but twice as big across the shoulders. And he had no neck. The sort of guy who could crush you with an annoyed glare. His right hand dropped into a jacket pocket, like he was ready to pull a knife.
      ”Whoa.” Ethan backed away. “My mistake. Sorry about that.”
      The guy scanned Ethan. His eyes were piercing, way too blue. Almost electric. But a moment later he smiled, eased his hand out of his pocket and gripped Ethan’s shoulder. It was like being held up by a wall.
      ”Sorry, man,” the guy said. His voice was calm and low. “Did I hit you?”
      ”No problem. You missed, actually,” Ethan sputtered, fear beating in his chest. All he wanted was to be on the same side as this guy in his next fight. He let the voice take over. “Taylor sent me over to help you out.”
      That was one of the voice’s specialties. Names.
      The big guy paused, looking him up and down. Not smiling anymore.
      ”Taylor sent you?” An edge of disbelief in the low rumble of his voice. “How’s a squirt like you gonna help?”
      Ethan hated when this happened. The voice would get him into situations that only the voice could get him out of. Then he was stuck, listening and waiting. Letting it talk.
      ”Taylor said you were bad off last night. Wasn’t sure you’d remember the way to his house.” The voice sounded like it was making a joke, so Ethan tried to smile.
      The guy stared at him another moment, then laughed. Abruptly, like that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “What a dickhead. I worked off that hangover in the gym this morning. How do you know Taylor?”
      ”My sister’s in his old army unit,” Ethan heard himself say, and cringed.
      Thing was, his sister really was in the army. Stuff could go really wrong when the voice told the truth. What if the guy asked for his sister’s name? What would the voice say then?
      But the guy relaxed, like he understood everything now. “So you’re family. Taylor wants you to join the team.”
      Ethan nodded, because it seemed like the right thing to do. “He said I should learn from the best.” The voice twisted his throat, like it was imitating someone. “‘Nobody better than the Craig.'”
      A low thunder of laughter spilled out of The Craig, who reached over and took Ethan’s shoulder again. The weight of his hand almost buckled Ethan’s knees.
      ”He tell you to say that? What a dickhead.” He shoved Ethan, sending him stumbling a few steps backward. “Come on. Car’s this way.”
      The Craig headed for a side street. Ethan took a breath and followed.
      Hell, maybe he could still get a ride home out of this.

Scam’s “voiceprint” background was created with a separate layer of paper cut-outs. Then it was flattened for scanning using this hi-tech process:

Click here for more about Zeroes. It’s out in Australia and the UK, and comes out Tuesday, Sep 29 in the US.

And here are some delicious buy buttons:

HARDCOVER
IndieBound
Amazon
B&N
Books-a-Million
S&S

EBOOK
Amazon Kindle
Apple iBooks
B&N
Google Play
S&S

Hey, I’m on tour right now! Click here for a list of appearances! In the meantime:

Below is the first of six character illustrations for my new book Zeroes, written with Margo Lanagan and Deb Biancotti. The image is by Jennie Gyllblad.

Her real name is Riley, but she goes by Flicker:

Click here for bigness

Collective Optical Hijack
Flicker can’t see through her own eyes, but she can borrow those of anyone around her. in other words, in a room alone she can’t see. In a room with a few other people, she can see quite a lot. And in a huge crowd, she’s almost omniscient.

All the Zeroes’ powers work this way: the more people around, the stronger they are. Crowd-sourced superpowers!

Here’s a passage from Zeroes to give you an idea of how Flicker’s vision-hijacking works:

Flicker was in the concierge’s eyes.
      His long fingers were scrolling a touchpad screen, his gaze flitting across requests from customers arriving in the next week. The hotel was filling up, thanks to the big Fourth of July display. Everyone wanted a room with a view of the old Parker-Meridian Hotel, which was scheduled for demolition during the show.
      Every minute or so the concierge looked up, scanning the lobby in a discreet and professional way. Perfect for keeping watch.
      Flicker saw herself in her wingback chair, her bright red dress easy to spot. But as she gave herself a smile, the concierge’s gaze slipped past her and came to a rest on a huge man strolling across the lobby floor.
      The concierge stared. It was hard not to. The guy was as wide as a door, all shoulders and thighs. He wore a shiny black t-shirt made from enough silk for a parachute. Five other big guys cruised across the lobby floor with him, a formation of battleships.
      A man in a Magnifique staff uniform came up and started talking to them, and the concierge’s eyes dropped back to his computer screen.
      Flicker sent her vision into the big guy’s eyes. She couldn’t hear anything from across the lobby, but it didn’t seem like a confrontation. The two were huddled close, the big guy’s eyes moving warily from side to side.
      The hotel staffer, a short man with a shaved head, held out his empty palm, and the big guy pushed a stack of twenties into it. In return, the staffer produced a hotel keycard and slipped it into the breast pocket of the big guy’s shirt.
      This was getting interesting. Flicker unfolded her cane and stood.

What I like most about Jennie’s work is that it combines illustration with collage. As you can see here, Flicker’s background is created with yarn and watercolor. So the characters are sort of like superpowered paper dolls.

Tune in over the next couple of weeks to see the rest of the characters. Click here for more about Zeroes.

It’s out now in Australia and the UK, and on Tuesday, Sep 29 in the US.

Below are all the public events for the 2015 Zeroes Tour. Cities include Sydney, LA, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Fort Collins CO, St Paul, Lansing MI, Atlanta, Nashville, Cincinnati, Princeton NJ, and New York City!

Zeroes comes out Sep 29 in the US, Sep 24 in the UK, and Sep 22 in Australia. Click here for more about the book.

All three of us—me, Deborah Biancotti, and Margo Lanagan—will be at the following events:

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Tuesday, September 22
6:00 PM for 6:30PM
KINOKUNIYA BOOKS
Levek 2, The Galeries, 500 George St
Sydney, NSW 2000
RSVP to: [email protected]
or 02 9262 7996

LOS ANGELES, CA
Tuesday, September 29
7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
1201 3rd St. Promenade
Santa Monica, CA  90401

SAN DIEGO, CA
Wednesday, September 30
7:30 PM    
MYSTERIOUS GALAXY BOOKS
75943 Balboa Ave
Ste 100
San Diego, CA  92111

SEATTLE, WA
Thursday, October 1
7:00 PM    
THIRD PLACE BOOKS
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA  98155
 
PORTLAND, OR
Friday, October 2
7:00 PM   
POWELL’S BOOKS, INC.
Cedar Hills Crossing
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd
Beaverton, OR 97005

PORTLAND, OR
Saturday, October 3
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association
Booksellers only. Details to come!
 
FORT COLLINS, CO
Monday, October 5
7:00 PM    
OLD TOWN LIBRARY
201 Peterson St
Fort Collins, CO  80524

ST. PAUL, MN
Tuesday, October 6
6:30 PM    
RED BALLOON BOOKSHOP
891 Grand Ave.
St. Paul, MN  55105

LANSING, MI
Wednesday, October 7 
7:00 PM        
SCHULER BOOKS & MUSIC
2820 Towne Center Blvd
Lansing, MI
48912                                                             

ATLANTA, GA
Thursday, October 8
7:00 PM
LITTLE SHOP OF STORIES
133A East Court Square
Decatur, GA  30030

NASHVILLE, TN
October 9 – 11
Southern Festival of Books
Details to come! 

CINCINNATI, OH
Monday, October 12
7:00 PM  EST
JOSEPH BETH BOOKSELLERS
Crestview Hills Town Center
2785 Dixie Hwy
Crestview Hills, KY 41017

PRINCETON, NJ
Tuesday, October 13 
6:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
3535 US Route 1
Market Fair
Princeton, NJ  08540

NEW YORK, NY
Wednesday, October 14
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM EST
BOOKS OF WONDER
18 W. 18th Street
New York, NY  10011

CHARLESTON, SC
November 13-14
YALLFest
Details to come!
(Me only. No Margo or Deb.)

A few FAQs about my tours:

Wait. What is Zeroes again?
My next book, written with Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. Click here for more info.

What happens at these book events?
We will talk for about half an hour, telling you all about how we wrote Zeroes. Then we will answer your questions (about anything, pretty much) for another 20 minutes or so. And finally we sign books. You can bring books from home, and our books will be available for sale. (Not just Zeroes, old stuff too.)

Can we bring lots of books to sign?
We will try to sign all your stuff. If you have a giant bag of books, it’s best to wait till the end of the line. Some bookstores may have stricter rules. I tend to ignore them, or will meet you secretly in the parking lot to sign your extra books, or cast, or pet wallaby.

How early should we arrive?
I’m not that famous. My events tend to have about 50-100 people. Just get there half an hour early, and you should be fine!

You guys aren’t coming to my city. Should I yell at you about this?
Nope. We don’t arrange out own tour. Publicists do it. Yell at them!

Can I cosplay, make a sign, or bring you a gift?
Yes, totally, and maybe. No edible gifts, please, and nothing big or hard to carry. Remember, I’m flying between all these cities!

You didn’t answer my question.
What am I, psychic? Ask it in the comments below!

The Uglies series has a new set of audiobooks out, with a new reader, Emily Tremaine. (Wolf of Wall Street)

Here’s a sample from Uglies:

And here’s a sample from Pretties. It’s the scene in which Tally and Zane first kiss!

Download your copies here:

Uglies
iTunes
Audible

Pretties
iTunes
Audible

I’ll be talking about my next novel, ZEROES, at San Diego Comic Con next week, in company with my co-authors, Deb Biancotti and Margo Lanagan. We have our own panel to discuss the book!

We’ll have swag and chapter samplers there as well. The details:

“From Zeroes to Heroes”
Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Deb Biancotti
Thursday, July 9, Noon
Horton Grand Theater
444 4th Ave.
San Diego, CA

Please share this graphic with ALL YOUR SDCC-GOING FRIENDS!

Time Magazine has a cover story about ubiquitous plastic surgery this week, and I am quoted in my capacity as Author of Uglies and Fake Expert on Body Image Stuff.

Behold:

At Book Expo America, I spoke with Jessica Mazo about Zeroes, my next novel, cowritten with Deb Biancotti and Margo Lanagan.

Behold:

Readers of the Uglies series may remember Aya’s pal Moggle in Extras, a semi-intelligent hovercam that tracks her around, providing footage of her exploits for her feed.

It seems that someone has invented something similar, but called it Lily.

Lily, of course, uses rotors instead of magnetic lifters, and only has 20 minutes battery life. It costs $500 if preordered now before anyone has reviewed a real one, and will be twice that when it ships next February. (Buyer beware.)

Here’s the camera’s official site, and you can find tons of other articles around the web.

It’s not quite Moggle, but it’s proof of concept. And why wouldn’t we all want our own hovercam following us around?

(Thanks to everyone who sent me this!)

A quick reminder: Justine and I will be at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY this Sunday! (May 10, 4PM) Click here for more details.

And now, here’s the Australian version of the Zeroes cover!

Behold:

I think it’s pretty cool. The authors’ names are more balanced (Deb and Margo are Australian, after all) and it’s a little jazzier and less gritty than the US one. (Shown here for comparison.)

The UK cover will be revealed soon!

What do you guys think?

I’m doing three events in May: an appearance at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY; several panels and a signing at the Romantic Times Conference in Dallas, TX; and a few things around Book Expo America here in New York City.

Oblong Books
Sunday, May 10, 2015
4:00pm
6422 Montgomery Street
Rhinebeck, NY 12572

Justine and I will be talking about our new books, Razorhurst and Afterworlds, and of course signing whatever you want us to sign.

Here’s a link to the event.

Romantic Times
Dallas, TX
May 12-17

I’m on three panels:

YA: From Magic to Gadgets to Alternate Worlds, A YA Fantasy Primer for Writers
Thursday, May 14, 2015 – 1:30pm to 2:30pm
Atrium Level (2nd Floor)
Room: Bryan-Beeman B

Uplifting Service
(Justine and I are special guests in this librarian-focused event.)
Thursday, May 14, 2015 – 2:45pm to 3:45pm
Atrium Level
Room: Cotton Bowl

Humble Beginnings: Your Favorite YA Authors Share Their Teen Writing
Saturday, May 16, 2015 – 4:30pm to 5:45pm
Atrium Level
Room: Gaston

Also, I’ll be at the huge Book Fair signing on May 16. Several of my books will be available for sale there.

Note that you have to get admission to the RT Convention to attend an of these events.

And finally, I’ll be at several events around Book Expo America and Book Con here in NYC.

Book Expo
Javits Convention Center
Friday, May 29th
10:30 – 11:30 am, Zeroes signing (in signing area)
3:30 – 4:45 pm, CBC Tea (room TK)

BookCon
Javits Convention Center
Sunday, May 31st
2:00-3:00 pm, Afterworlds signing
3:30-4:30 pm, The Big Bad Theory
(Sci Fi Panel, moderated by CharlieJane Anders)

More details to come!

On Saturday, April 11, Justine and I will be at Teen Book Con in Houston. Each panel presents four times a day, so you’ll be able to catch us both:

“The Secrets That Bind Us”
Ally Carter
Lindsay Cummings
Justine Larbalestier
Henry Turner

“Reality Need Not Apply”
Lydia Kang
Megan Miranda
Kristen Simmons
Tommy Wallach
Scott Westerfeld

Click here for details on Teen Book Con.

On April 13, we’ll be in Austin, where Justine is doing an event with Ally Carter and David Levithan. (I will be lurking around.)

Book People
603 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78703
Monday, April 13, 7PM
Click here for more info.

We will also both be at TLA, the Texas Library Association’s convention in Austin. Those events are for con attendees only, but we hope to see lots of fantastic Texan librarians there!

And finally, Justine and I will be doing an event in Mexico City on April 20. It’s our first public event in Mexico, and we’re very excited!

More details on that soon, right here.

(Also, if you want to donate to a great program for teenage writers of fantasy and science fiction, check out the Alpha Workshop. I’ve taught there, and it’s the best.)

Hey, everyone. I’m back in the States for the New York Teen Author Festival (#NYCTAF). I’ll be doing several events, and there are many more to choose from. Here’s the complete schedule.

And here’s my personal schedule:

“What is YA anyway?”
Monday, March 16
Mulberry Street NYPL, 10 Jersey St
6-8pm

At a time when YA feels ascendant, we’re going to check in and ask: What is YA, anyway? Where does it come from? What does it mean to authors, readers, and the media? Where is it going? Are there fears that it’s just a “trend” right now, and that the pendulum will swing away from it again … or is YA here to stay? How, as writers, do we continue to keep it evolving? None of us will have answers, but we’ll certainly have opinions.

Leigh Bardugo
Daniel Ehrenhaft
Donna Freitas
Lev Grossman
Micol Ostow
Danielle Paige
Scott Westerfeld
moderator: David Levithan

Reader’s Theater/Signing
Friday March 20
Union Square Barnes & Noble, 33 E 17th St
7-8:30pm

Our annual Reader’s Theater, which is always a highlight of the Festival. I will follow up with more details on this one. This year we’ll have two groups of four, with me as the swing.

Cathleen Bell
Holly Black
Heather Demetrios
Kevin Emerson
Tanuja Desai Hidier
Kathryn Holmes
David Levithan
Scott Westerfeld

Exploring Feminist YA
Saturday March 21
42nd Street NYPL, Bartos Forum, 5th Ave at 42nd St
1:40-2:30pm

A conversation about gender in YA, and about writing and promoting feminist YA in particular.

Libba Bray
Gayle Forman
Nova Ren Suma
Scott Westerfeld
moderator: David Levithan

No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing
Sunday March 22
Books of Wonder, 18 W 18th St
1-4pm

My signing slot is 3:30-4pm. Seee the complete schedule for everyone else involved.

Hope to see many of you in NYC!

Razorhurst, the latest novel from my lovely wife, Justine Larbalestier, is finally out in the US and Canada! (It came out in Australia last July.)

It’s about Kelpie, an orphan in 1932 Sydney, who can see ghosts. Raised by restless spirits on the streets of Razorhurst, a crime-ridden slum, she stumbles into the middle of a gang war. To survive, she must forge an alliance with Dymphna, a young call-girl who’s being pursued by one of the city’s crime bosses. It all takes place across one bloody day in the neighborhood where Justine and I live in Sydney. (Which is much nicer now. Lots of coffee shops, hardly any razor gangs.)

Razorhurst was inspired partly by police photographs of period, like this one:

See, that’s when they made crims that looked like crims.

If you want to know more, here’s a post about the book on Justine’s blog, including a link to read the first chapter.

And a guest post on the Whatever about how Justine got the idea for the book.

And finally, here are some cool cover-related pix for sharing on social media, which is what the kids do today with their memes, I’m told.

Hope you get a chance to read it!

Here is the cover for Zeroes!

Click here for a description of how Zeroes came about, and what it’s about. (Superpowers! Lashings of superpowers, each one more super than the last!)

I am unusually proud of this cover, because I made more of a contribution than usual. Authors do get a say in their covers, sometimes. But it’s not like we’re graphic designers, so nobody has to listen to us.

In this case, though, I got lucky. My designer, the lovely Regina Flath, had sent us all an early version of the spray paint design. It was definitely moving in the right direction, but we wanted it to have a little bit more texture.

But what kind of texture? Concrete? Dirt? Something gritty, we knew.

So I went out for a walk to think about it, and on the way down my stairwell in Sydney, I saw a magnificent three-part crack in the concrete floor. And the two images melded in my mind, as if by magic!

So I sent Regina a photo of the crack, and the rest is history. Bonus: There actually is a crack in a wall in Zeroes, playing a small but key role in the narrative.

Also cool: The actual title will be printed in a so-called fifth color, and thus will be an eye-spanking florescent yellow.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

Zeroes comes out September 29, 2015.

Behold, the cover for the Afterworlds paperback! We figured we would go for a change.

I really like the background, to go with the gray afterworld in Darcy’s book, and how it contrasts with that splash of color that is NYC. And, as with the first cover, the teardrop is a great symbol for the novel as a whole.

Check it out:

My next book comes out September 29, 2015. Eight months from now!

It’s called Zeroes. Like heroes, by not. It’s about six kids with superpowers that kind of suck. It’s the first of a trilogy.

I wrote it with Margo Lanagan and Deb Biancotti, two Australian writers who are close friends of mine. We were all keen to make our writing a more social process, so we started meeting at a pub every Thursday, where we talked about superpowers and how to make them fresh and interesting. For us anyway.

Two years later, Zeroes is the result.

Collaborating on a novel with other writers was a new thing for me. I’ve worked with illustrators, of course, and with another writer to produce the Uglies graphic novels. But this was different and fascinating, and I think I learned a lot. I’ll leave it to others to judge the results.

Here’s an article on Tor.com about the book.

We won’t have a final cover yet, but it’s coming along. It will appear here and elsewhere in a couple of months. It’s pretty cool so far.

Zeroes will be published simultaneously in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. (By Allen and Unwin in Australia and S&S in the other territories.) Rights have been sold in several foreign markets as well.

Okay, that’s all I got. Do you guys have any (non-spoilery) questions?

Greetings from Sydney. I’ve been here for a month now, recovering from the Afterworlds tour and putting the finishing touches on my next novel. (The title, etc. of this book is secret now, but much will be revealed early next year.)

In the meantime, and with due deference to the season, here are a couple of cool items to compliment your Hanukwanzamas haul:

Barnes & Noble has a signed and bonus content edition of Afterworlds on its shelves now. The extra material is one of the chapters that Darcy discarded after receiving her editorial letter. (So it’s part of Darcy’s book, pre-rewrites!)

This edition has two stickers on it, one for the extra content and one because it’s signed by me:

Alas, you can’t order the signed version online. But you can order the bonus content edition (without signature) right here.

For Uglies fans, I earlier this year wrote a short story called “How David Got His Scar.” The story is set in the time before David has met Tally, but after Shay’s runaway friends, Croy and Astrix, have reached the Smoke. It tells the secret story of David’s eyebrow scar.

To find this B&N hardback exclusive edition of Uglies, look for this black sticker in B&N stores:

You can also order this edition online right here.

Okay, there are some other holiday deals out there, but I can’t remember them. Will update this post when I do.

And happy Hanukwanzamas!

My twenty-city, three-country, back-breaking tour for Afterworlds is done! Now I can go back to that other job I have. Which is, um . . . writing. Yeah, that’s it.

A few notable things:

The New York Times gave me a great review, which contained this marketing-department-happy-making pull-quote:

“‘Afterworlds’ is a wonderful book for any young person with an interest in growing up to be a writer.”

Though I would add the words or who is already a writer. Because it’s November, and real writings are underway.

Of course, we can forgive the paternal tone here. We all know that YA reviews in the NY Times aren’t targeted at actual teenagers. (I mean, the review also compares Darcy Patel to Mary Tyler Moore and Cary Bradshaw, as opposed to any characters created in, say, the current century.) And trust me, I fully comprehend that it’s churlish to take issue with one’s positive coverage in the New York-frickin’-Times. So I’m not so much complaining as thinking aloud about who the imagined audience for this review is—not teenagers, pretty clearly—and what that says about the overall relevance of the Paper of Record to the greater project of YA lit.

But please, all you Times-reading adults with credit cards, go order my book for the writerly young people in your life! They’re the ones with dark circles under their eyes muttering “word count, word count” at the breakfast table this month.

They aren’t just growing up to be writers; they are writers right now.

Other stuff:

My first flight in the second leg of the tour was delayed, which left me in DFW airport at almost exactly midnight. If you’ve read Afterworlds, you know that this is pretty hilarious.

In Dallas, a model-making fan named Jon-Luc showed me his diorama of the death of the Goeben, which was pretty amazing:

The kind students of Alvin, TX gave me this amazing gift basket:

And at the Texas Teen Book Festival, I learned that there is a tortoise named Deryn.

Had a lovely time at Changing Hands, as always. And at Hicklebee’s Books in San Jose, CA, where visiting authors sign the walls, doors, and columns, I did something naughty:

Had a great time at the NaNoWriMo fund-raiser at Books Inc. in San Francisco. Even though we were up against the Giants in the World Series, we pulled a big crowd. Way to put books before sportsball, SF!

Boston Book Festival was the bomb, as was Toronto last week. And the tour finally wrapped up at the amazing YALLfest in Charleston, SC, where I met the very smart and terribly poised 16-year-old author of Popular, Maya van Wagenen:

And then, with Varian Johnson, I conspired to photobomb the crap out of noted rappers V-Roth, S-Dess, E-Hop, G-4, and D-Paige.*

All in all, it was too much fun.

To all who came to my events, thank you! I hope it was as fun for you as it was for me. For those of you who missed me, I’m sorry we didn’t connect. Maybe next year.

Yes, I will be touring again next year, though for an entirely new series. (TOP SECRET!)

*Veronica Roth, Sarah Dessen, Ellen Hopkind, Gayle Forman, and Danielle Page. Duh.

This is an excerpt from a work in progress called How to Write YA. It’s a companion to my current book, Afterworlds, about a young novelist living in NYC. (More on this page.) You can also listen to me talking about Afterworlds and about NaNoWriMo here on Wisconsin Public Radio, or join me for a NaNoWriMo chat on Tuesday, Nov 4 at 5:30PM EST on Spreecast.

Finally, you can catch me live in Toronto or Charleston this week!

Point of View
Point of view is hard. It’s complicated, subtle, and confusing, and POV failure is one of the most common reasons why agents and publishers cast aside submissions half read.

To make things worse, a lot of the writing advice on the subject is unhelpful or downright wrong. Much of the terminology is broken. (“Limited omniscience” makes about as much sense as “casual nuclear attack.”) And, as I spent the previous post pointing out, POV is at the core of the novel’s primary affordance—getting us into someone else’s head.

So I’m going to talk about POV first, and at length. I’m going to invent some of my own terminology and use some old terms in new ways. (If you hate that sort of thing, go away.)

To start with the obvious: point of view isn’t one thing; it’s a toolbox. The tools inside this box can be combined in many ways, and the tools themselves are like adjustable wrenches—each possesses its own continuum of settings.

So let’s break POV into four basic elements:
1) Viewpoint (where the information of the narrative comes from)
2) Person and tense (the grammar of the narration)
3) Distance (the immediacy of the narration to the events of the story)
4) Voice (the personality of the narration, especially its attitude toward the reader).

I’m not saying that this schema is the One True Way to discuss POV. In fact, I intend these categories to be a bit weird and vexatious, as a way to break up your assumptions about how POV works. Because bad assumptions are everywhere.

For example, I frequently see people saying, “First person present tense is a very immediate way to tell a story!” Which is crap. The grammar of a narrative and its distance are two different things.

Take this story opening:

The summer has been long and boiling, my body changing in ways I don’t understand yet, my mind tangling in those changes’ wake. So it’s a mystery how I first get the idea to set fire to the home of the only girl I’ve ever loved.

Yes, it’s in present tense and first person, but there’s an elegiac lilt to the language, a sense that everything has already taken place. The grammar doesn’t change that.

But let’s say you started the story this way:

It was a hot day, and Roger was bored and itchy.
“Let’s set fire to Cindy’s house,” he said.

This is in the past tense and third person, but it’s way more immediate, with the story happening in real time before our eyes. In other words, the grammar doesn’t determine distance. Far more important is the way the story is told.

Some of you might be saying, “But wouldn’t it be more immediate in present tense?” To which I say, Maybe a little, but please note that every single other difference between the two passages is more important.

My division of POV into four elements is a way to remind you of this fact, that there are no shortcuts to getting the right voice or distance or viewpoint. You never get to say, “I picked present tense, so my novel is awesome and intense!”

Over the next few weeks, I’ll go through each of the four elements in detail: viewpoint, grammar (person and tense), distance, and finally voice. For now, let’s start with viewpoint in its most basic form.

Single Limited Viewpoint
As I said above, viewpoint simply means where the information in a novel comes from.

Does it come from one character? From many? From an invisible camera that sees all (but doesn’t know what anyone’s thinking)? Is the narrator a bodiless entity of great wisdom who knows the future and the past? Or is the novel simply a compilation of documents found in an abandoned vault? (If so, who wrote them? Who compiled them?) Is the narrator a trickster, a liar, a mad person? Or a writer at a desk talking directly to you, the reader?

Or is the universe itself talking to you?

Over centuries of writing, writers have experimented with a dizzying range of viewpoints, allowing the novel to reinvent itself time and again. If you never experiment with viewpoint in your writing life, you will be a very boring writer indeed.

But let’s start simply, with single limited viewpoint.

In this mode, all the reader can ever learn is what one character experiences. You’ve read tons of books like this. My own Uglies series is one example. From the early twentieth century, SLV has become perhaps the dominant mode of the novel. Indeed, there are people out there who will tell you that this is the Only Correct Viewpoint. (They are benighted, tiny people. But they exist.)

Why is it so popular? Here’s my guess:

In the single limited viewpoint, readers bond very closely with one narrator. All we ever find out is what that person sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes, thinks, believes, and knows. We’re living inside their head, so we can’t help but start to identify with their desires, needs, and opinions. This bonding process is what makes reading so immersive and transformative. It turns us into another person.

This is what keeps us up at night with a flashlight.

So how does it work?

I’m about to show you lots of examples. Unless otherwise noted, I’m just making these up on the fly. They aren’t great literature, but they’re not meant to be. They’re more like those plastic models of flowers at the science museum—they aren’t as lovely as real flowers, but they’re useful for showing you how stuff works.

Here we go:

Arnold frowned. “I’m not quite sure what you’re asking me.”

Behind him, a group of sailboats were gliding past on the bay. Maria watched their sails flutter and fill, trying to ignore the way his eyes flashed when he teased her.

“I was asking, um, if you wanted to get coffee?” A cool droplet of sweat crept down the inside of her arm.

After a long moment, the barest hint of a smile crossed Arnold’s face. It felt like daybreak.

“I like coffee,” he said.

Clearly, we are in Maria’s viewpoint here, not Arnold’s. We can see Arnold’s facial expressions and the boats behind him (which he presumably can’t see). We feel Maria’s sweat on her skin, and her emotions as well. When Arnold’s smile is “like daybreak,” that’s what it feels like to Maria, not to Arnold.

Importantly, we can’t see Maria. Unless she looks in a mirror (argh!) she’s mostly invisible to us.

But even invisible, she does know things about herself. Let’s continue a bit:

“I like coffee,” he said.

Maria smiled, straightening the cambric shirt she’d worn especially for Arnold. He’d said he liked the shirt—a month ago?—and she’d worn it often since. “Glad to hear that. I like coffee too.”

Maria doesn’t need a mirror to know she’s smiling, or what clothes she put on this morning. That information is in her head, so it’s available to us in single limited viewpoint. More important, we also know why she put on that shirt, because Maria knows why, and she’s just had a moment of self-consciousness about it.

Facial expressions can be tricky, because they can be sensed from the inside or seen from the outside. In first passage, I wrote, “the barest hint of a smile crossed Arnold’s face.” That wouldn’t work for Maria, because a “hint of a smile” is something perceived at from the outside. For a hinted smile in her own viewpoint, I might try something like: “Maria felt a smile playing at her lips, and swallowed it.”

See the difference?

When you’re writing in limited single viewpoint, every piece of information you put into the text—physical details, actions, mood, even the simplest background knowledge about the world—has to pass these tests: Does your viewpoint character know about this? Would your viewpoint character notice this? Does you viewpoint character have the capacity to understand this?

If you can’t answer yes to all those questions, then you have to leave that detail out.

In a way, the text of your novel becomes the viewpoint character. When they think or feel something, the reader doesn’t have to be told it’s the character thinking or feeling it; the character’s mind simply imbues the text. This is why we talk about limited viewpoint as “being in a character’s head.”

Let’s look at another example:

Billy stared at the wall. It was dirty, and had been painted a foul color of green by someone too lazy to tape the moldings. Behind it, Mom and Dad were screaming at each other about something. Which meant it was going to be another dismal Sunday drive to Grandma’s place.

If this were the first paragraph of a novel, we’d know right away that we’re in Billy’s viewpoint. This fact affects everything about the text. For example:

Billy stared at the wall. It was dirty, and had been painted a foul color of green . . .

The nasty color of the wall is Billy’s opinion, not objective reality. Also, the foulness of the green probably reflects his current mood more than any permanent opinion about the wall. (Some of you may recall how the protagonist’s bad mood informs the color of sky at the start of Uglies.)

And check this out:

[The wall] had been painted a foul color of green by someone too lazy to tape the moldings.

Billy probably wasn’t there when the wall was painted. If he had been, the lazy painter would be a specific person, not “someone.” This laziness is Billy’s assumption, based on his observations in the present. But here’s the important part: even though Billy lives in this house, he’s noticing the sloppy paint job at this exact moment. His sulky mood has infected every detail of the room (and every detail of the text).

At this point, the reader might already be wondering why this guy is in such a crappy mood. And the text answers:

Behind [the wall], Mom and Dad were screaming at each other about something.

Let’s assume Billy can’t see through walls, but he can recognize his parents’ voices. Note that the argument is “about something,” without specifics, which probably means the words are muffled. (It’s also possible that Billy doesn’t care about his parents’ arguments anymore, and so isn’t listening particularly hard.)

Also, notice that it’s just “Mom and Dad,” not “Billy’s mom and dad.” Even though this is third-person, it’s as if Billy is talking to us. We’re inside his brain, where Mom and Dad are pretty much their names.

Which meant it was going to be another dismal Sunday drive to Grandma’s place.

This prediction about the coming car trip is Billy’s best guess, based on his past experiences and his current crappy mood.

The cool thing is, the writer doesn’t have to explain that these are Billy’s observations and guesses and assumptions. Readers already know the conventions of limited viewpoint and understand that character and text are extensions of each other.

Look at what happens if we get rid of these assumptions:

Billy stared at the wall. It had been painted a color of green that he found foul, apparently by someone too lazy to tape the moldings. From behind it came the muffled sounds of Billy’s mother and father screaming at each other. He sighed, guessing that it was going to be another dismal drive to his grandmother’s place.

This passage spells out the machinery of limited viewpoint, rather than just letting it happen. It makes for clumsy prose. Ironically, by constantly reminding us that we’re in Billy’s viewpoint, this language forces us out of Billy’s viewpoint.

Of course, the writer might not want to be so closely in Billy’s head, because he’s a minor character who’s about to die, or because it makes this scene too depressing. But you have to admit that second version is clunkier.

Let’s see what happens to the passage if Billy is a different sort of person. What he sees and hears may be exactly the same, and yet everything changes:

Billy stared at the wall. It had been painted a mismatched forest green (Pantone 363?) by someone too barbaric to tape the moldings. Through the thin drywall came muffled screaming—the lord and lady of the house had been at it all morning. “Customers,” Billy sighed. It was going to be another tense morning of arguments over carpet samples and color swatches.

Meet Billy 2, an interior decorator. He’s more aware of color than Billy 1. For him, people who paint sloppily are demoted from “lazy” down to “barbaric.” Billy 2 casually identifies details of the wall’s construction. (Billy 1 might know what drywall is, but he probably wouldn’t think it.) Also note that Billy 2 isn’t as depressed as Billy 1. Your own parents fighting may be “dismal,” but your customers arguing is merely “tense.”

This is what makes limited viewpoints so powerful: everything changes when the observer changes. This means that we learn as much about a character by how they see reality as by their actions and choices. You don’t have to make your narrator look in an actual mirror, because the whole world becomes their mirror.

(Protip: never make your character look in an actual mirror.)

And now for an important aside. As I was so strenuously pointing out above, viewpoint is separate from person. In other words, all this stuff works exactly the same way in first-person as it does in third-person. Check this out:

I stared at the wall. It was dirty, and had been painted a foul color of green by someone too lazy to tape the moldings. Behind it, Mom and Dad were screaming at each other about something. Which meant it was going to be another dismal Sunday drive to Grandma’s place.

That’s right. I change one word and this passage goes from third-person to first, from Billy’s viewpoint to “mine.” That’s what I meant about POV tools being interchangeable. (I’ll get back to first- and third-person in a later chapter. Just wanted to point out again that person is separate from viewpoint. I like repeating things. Repeating things is good. We learn through repetition!)

Let’s look at some more examples of how viewpoint informs text. Here’s the first of three characters witnessing a fighter jet fly past:

An F-104 Starfighter in camouflage livery shot past, hugging the contours of the land, drenching the valley with sound and fury. It tipped sideways, silhouetting its trapezoidal wings against the dawn, then let tear with the afterburner of its single engine, which threw those tons of metal up into the sky like so much thistledown.

Okay. What do we know about this character? They know a lot about fighter jets, clearly. In fact, one might say they love military aircraft, because the language of the passage reflects that affection.

Now let’s see the same event through the eyes of a non-enthusiast:

The fighter plane shot past, furiously loud and low to the ground, its metal skin mottled with gray and green. Then it tipped sideways, a sudden black triangle against the dawn, its roar redoubling, and a moment later it was gone.

See how all that technical info about engines and afterburners disappeared? Those facts are outside the knowledge base of the narrator. They can’t show up in this story without another character filling them in.

More important, the love is gone. This character has no great affection for fighter jets, so the poetry of the passage fades into more mere observation. So does that mean the first narrator is better, because they allow access to all the writer’s lovingly researched details?

Maybe not. As a reader opening a novel to that first passage, I’d be pretty certain that many cool airplane facts were in my future. This will thrill some readers; others will put the book down. In some ways that enthusiastic first character is also limited by their knowledge, because they can’t look at a jet plane without thinking of its technical specifications. Which might get old after a few hundred pages.

Also, sometimes a character who doesn’t know things is more interesting than one who does. Check out this version:

The sky was splitting, tearing open along the red horizon. The hills around Hera roared and shrieked, the earth itself shuddering in terror. A shape caught her nervous eyes for a moment—a knife hurtling through the air. But then with a furious bellow, it disappeared into the sky, leaving only a sharp scent behind, like the tar pits when lightning had set them burning.

This passage is clearly describing the same event, but there’s nothing about airplanes. That’s weird.

If this were the first paragraph of a novel, the reader might not even realize what was going on. But Hera isn’t stupid or unobservant. In fact, she noticed something the other narrators missed: the lingering scent of expended jet fuel, which smells like . . . a tar pit?

Of course! This is one of those books where a stone-age woman travels through time and sees a jet fighter. (Or maybe the jets have gone back to hunt mastodons. Yeah, I’m going with that.) As such, Hera lacks any frame of reference for what a jet is. She barely understands that all this sound and fury is caused by a flying object. To her, it’s more like the sky is shaking itself apart. It might take a few scenes for the reader to grasp what these noisy sky-things are. (Of course, the cover would probably show jets shooting at mastodons. But let’s just ignore that.)

Having a viewpoint character who’s thrown out of their usual frame of reference can be a glorious thing. In speculative fiction, characters often find themselves in other eras, on other planets, or facing revelations of magic hidden beneath the surface of the everyday world. The narrator who steps through a portal and doesn’t know what’s going on is a great stand-in for the reader, because everything is new and shiny to them. They’re being introduced to the novel’s alternate world at the same time the reader is.

So which do you choose? A narrator who knows a little? A lot? Nothing at all?

Partly it depends on how much of your story depends on technical details. If you’re telling a story about someone stealing a stealth fighter, an expert narrator is probably the way to go. If you’re making the point that modern technology has godlike potential to do damage to the world, maybe it’s better to show it from a stone-age hunter’s perspective than a jet pilot’s.

Repeat this before bed each night in November: The meaning of a story is molded by the eyes we show it through.

Another key is consistency. In other words, don’t cheat. You have to stick with what your character knows, or have them learn new things in a reasonable time frame. If you have a narrator suddenly remember the dragon-slaying class they took in high school or that time they learned ancient Greek, you bounce your reader out of the protagonist’s head.

And a broken viewpoint is a broken novel. (< -Also repeat this daily.)

Of course, knowledge isn't the only thing that makes people who they are. Characters are also their beliefs, assumptions, and politics. In other words, their worldview.

Let's go back to the non-expert character watching the jet, with some edits:

The fighter plane shot past, its metal skin mottled gray and green, so furiously loud and low to the ground that I feared it would crash. Then it tipped sideways, a sudden black triangle against the dawn, its roar redoubling, no doubt expending enough fuel to have heated my humble schoolhouse for a whole winter.

The big change here isn’t knowledge, it’s attitude. For this character, contour-hugging maneuvers are unfamiliar and scary, which makes them nervous for the safety of the pilot. And they can’t watch a display of military hardware without thinking of the social costs. The poetry of the aircraft enthusiast has been replaced by an acid tone.

Our beliefs—political, religious, and ethical—are the lenses through which we see the world. These parts of a character’s personality inform the text just as much as their knowledge, mood, and senses.

On top of which, people are complicated. One last jet flyover:

An F-104 Starfighter in camouflage livery shot past, hugging the contours of the land, drenching the valley with sound and fury. It tipped sideways, silhouetting its trapezoidal wings against the dawn, then let tear with the afterburner of its single J79 engine. Those tons of metal were thrown up into the sky like so much thistledown, no doubt expending enough fuel to have heated my humble schoolhouse for a whole winter.

Plot twist! This character both loves the charismatic fury of military aircraft and hates their social and economic costs. (Urban legend: The conflict is coming from inside the house!) This is why single limited can be so powerful, because a character’s inner struggle can imbue the language of the novel itself.

It’s up to the writer to put all this together. With every sentence, you have to remember the constraints of your character’s senses, the colors of their mood, the extent and zeal of their knowledge base, and the repercussions of their beliefs and principles.

It’s not easy. But if you do your job well, readers don’t just bond with your narrator, they become them. They start noticing the same details, feeling the same anxieties, and even dreaming the same dreams.

That’s how novels change the way that people see the world.

So why don’t we write every novel in single limited viewpoint? Given that YA lit is so concerned with the teenage experience, surely this kind of immersive storytelling is what we should be aiming for.

Here’s the problem: The greatest strength of single limited viewpoint is also its greatest drawback. Because we’re so closely aligned with one character, our experiences are limited to theirs. As a writer, you’re trapped with one pair of eyes. This limits how many events the reader can witness first-hand, and how much you can reveal of the world you’ve created.

If you want to show how the awesome plumbing system of Dwarf Castle works, you’ll have to make your narrator a dwarven plumbing expert. (Um, yay.) If there are exciting things happening in two places at the same time, your reader only gets to witness one of them. If a serial killer is secretly stalking the narrator, the reader won’t know this—and will feel zero suspense—until the narrator finds out about it. (And then it’s not secret stalking anymore, is it?)

But the biggest constraint of the single limited viewpoint is not of senses or knowledge, but of belief. Your text is trapped within a single set of assumptions, a single ethical framework. A character’s beliefs may change over time, but you can’t show both sides of an issue at once.

Those of you who’ve read my Leviathan books, try to imagine them with only a Clanker perspective, and no Darwinist characters, or vice versa. The whole point of the series would vanish. With single limited viewpoint, you never get a first-hand look at what it’s like to be the bad guy. You may never discover that from a different perspective, all that badness was completely justified. And don’t forget that about half the YA audience is teenagers, who have been known to question authority. They are open to the idea that truth doesn’t flow from single well.

So sometimes you have to bust out of this single-character thing.

In the next post, I’ll talk about multiple-character viewpoints.

Click here to read Part 1, “What Is YA?”
Click here to read Part 2, “What Are Stories?”
Click here to read Part 3, “What Are Novels?”

I’m still on tour for Afterworlds, because touring is fun.

If you live in Texas (Dallas, Austin and Houston), or in Phoenix, San Francisco, or Boston, you can come see me in the next two weeks! And in November I’ll be in Toronto and Charleston, SC. Just check out my Appearances page for details.

For the rest of you, here are some amusing photos from tour.

This is one I took for my upcoming Tumblr, IndieBookstoreBathrooms:

Here’s what an audience looks like when you’re giving a presentation. In no way intimidating!

And this is evidence of studious reading:

It’s always great to see Midnighters tattoos:

Holly Black and Cassandra Clare were also on tour at the same time, so they left me and Justine friendly notes in various bookstores:

It’s always cool seeing one’s name in lights.

Unlike the cake, the shortbread is not a lie.

And in St. Louis, I got to be in my own covers. AT LAST.

Anyway, that’s a mere fraction of all the cool stuff that happened. Thanks to everyone who came out to buy books and laugh at my jokes. You are all wonderful.