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Since, agent Jill Corcoran is such a good marketer, I am sure most of you already know about the video series that author of the PLOT WHISPERER, Martha Alderson and literary agent Jill Corcoran released three months ago.

You can watch the first video in the series for free, which I did last week. It was very good and since I watched it, I’ve been wondering how I could come up with the money to rent the rest of the series.

Today, Martha and Jill lowered the price to $75.00 to rent the 8 part series for a whole year, so now I can afford to buy the series and learn from what they have put together.

If you are a picture book writer, they even have something for you. You can pre-order: How to Write & Sell A Picture Book- Pre-Order and SAVE $25 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/writesellpicturebook

Here is the information for the Revising Your Novel in a Month: http://vimeo.com/ondemand/reviseyournovelinamonth

In this 8 Video (5.5 hours) Series, Plot Whisperer Martha Alderson and Literary Agent Jill Corcoran provide step-by-step instruction on how to revise your
• Concept
• Structure and design
• Tension and conflict
• Character growth and transformation
• Pacing
• Cause and effect
• Meaning
• Hook
• Polish
• Prose
in preparation for a major rewrite of your novel.

To complete the course in a month, watch two videos a week. Or, work at your own pace and take more or less time on the step-by-step exercises. You decide your revision pace as you explore and complete each video exercise based on your own individual needs in preparation for a major rewrite.
• 8 videos (available for viewing as many times as you would like for 1 year)
• 30 writing exercises- one for each day of the Revise Your Novel Month

apathtopublishing.com/for-those-who-purchased-aptp-videos/

PlotWriMo: REVISE YOUR NOVEL IN A MONTH
I. TRAILER
a. Introduction
II. OVERALL STORY LEVEL
a. Video #1: HOW TO REVISE + CONCEPT & CHARACTERS
• Welcome
• How to Approach Revision
• Organization
• Concept
• Characters
• Story Titles
III. PLOT AND STRUCTURE LEVEL
a. Video #2: TRANSFORMATION + GOALS
• Review
• Layers of Plot
• Transformation / Change
• Goals
b. Video #3: CONCEPT + ENERGETIC MARKERS
• Review
• Concept
• Energetic Markers
• Plot Planner
IV. SCENE LEVEL
a. Video #4: SCENES AND THEMES
• Review
• Scene and Summary
• Themes
• Character Motivation
• Antagonist
b. Video #5: CLIMAX
• Review
• Preparation
• Anticipation
• Event
• Reaction
• 3 Major Plot Lines
• Antagonist Crisis
c. Video #6: BEGINNING & END
• Review
• Beginning
• Traits, Skills, Knowledge, Beliefs
• Cause and Effect
• Antagonists
V. WORD LEVEL
a. Video #7: MANUSCRIPT VOICE + CHARACTER & ACTION
• Voice
• Transformational Journey
• Backstory Wound
• Subplots and Theme
• Crisis

b. Video #8: FIRST PAGES + FINAL TEST
• Every Word Perfect
• Sentence structure
• Dialog
• Prepare for Rewrite
• Rewrite
• Concept
• Structure and design
• Tension and conflict
• Character growth and transformation
• Pacing
• Cause and effect
• Meaning
• Hook
• Polish
• Prose
To complete the course in a month, watch two videos a week. Or, work at your own pace and take more or less time on the step-by-step exercises. You decide your revision pace as you explore and complete each video exercise based on your own individual needs in preparation for a major rewrite.
• 8 Instructional videos (available for viewing as many times as you would like for 1 year)
• 30 writing exercises- one for each day of the Revise Your Novel Month
Who will benefit from PlotWriMo: Revise Your Novel in a Month:
• Writers seeking to write a great novel
• Writers with a draft of a novel and uncertain how to proceed
• Writers with story problems
• Writers who feel blocked
• Writers who wish to move from where they are to where you wish to be
• Writers committed to improving your craft
• Writers interested in digging deeper into your story
• Writers needing help organizing for a major rewrite

Dolly D. Napal watched the series and said, “Don’t let the title fool you. This is not only a revision course. It’s a fully comprehensive writing course for PB, MG, YA, and Adult writers, at any point in their career.”

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

This Team Sand Castle Contest was illustrated by Jason Kirschner and won Honorable Mention Unpublished Illustrator Award at the NJSCBWI Artist Showcase. http://www.jasonkirschner.com/jasonkirschner.com/Home.html

Hello all! Jersey Farm Scribe here. Last time we talked I was giving you my take away on how to Attack a Conference. I promised I’d tell you some of the specific, tangible things I learned at the NJ SCBWI.

So here is one of the biggest:

Pitch/Concept

It seems so simple. But I hadn’t thought of it like this before.

Pitch IS Concept.

I took Jill Corcoran’s workshop on concept and selling through to readers. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but I knew Jill is revered for her grasp of plot and revisions. I’ve been over her website A Path to Publishing, quite a few times, and gotten invaluable information from her blog, so I was ready to see what she had to say in person.

One of the first things that struck me was how interchangeably she seemed to use the words “pitch” and “concept.”

To me, pitch was what you practice saying over and over to be prepared to present my idea to one of the editors and agents walking around. It was what I put in the beginning of my query letter. That elevator, two or three sentence wrap of what my book was.

Concept was…. actually, to be honest I hadn’t really thought about it.

As Jill said in the workshop, and as she explains in the beginning of her free video on PlotWriMo (Revise your novel in a month), the CONCEPT is how you’d convince someone to read your book.

Okay, so that means it’s what’s the book about, right?

Well… yes and no.

If I want to go see a movie, and I have to convince other people to want to go see it, what would I say? What makes it special? What draws me to want to see it? Why should someone else want to see it?

That’s more than going over the plot. It’s more than what happens, or who the main characters are. It’s what gives the movie meaning, substance, interest and originality.

And that’s not easy to do in a few sentences!! As Kathy has said, write it all out first. go back to cut and condense.

But how do we know if we’re cutting the right things?

In the workshop, a few of us read our “pitch” to Jill. And a common theme in her response was, “You’re not really TELLING me anything. I know you think you are. But you’re not.”

A lot of it came down to specifics. The pitch has a reader. That reader needs to know what’s going on. It’s a book about heroism! Great. But how so? The kids are going to save the world? Excellent. But WHY? What’s wrong with the world in the first place? Shelby finds herself confused and alone. Okay. But why? And who isn’t? So what’s so special about her confusion?

So how to attack punching up the concept/pitch? I learned to do three things:

1) How will a publisher SELL the book? I hadn’t really thought about this before either. At all. It was especially meaningful for me, because I have a chapter book with a surprise ending. Sure, a surprise can be great. But TOO much surprise makes for a pretty weak back flap on the back of book! How do you sell that?

I don’t want a publisher sitting there thinking. “Yeah, it’s great. But I can’t TELL potential readers why it’s so great or else it’ll ruin the whole thing!”

You’re looking for a pretty serious commitment from someone, whether it’s an agent, editor, publisher, or even the final buyer of the book. Whatever is going to make them go: THIS IS IT! This is the next book I want to my devote time and money to! That’s your concept. That’s your pitch.

Then it’s time to examine it closer:

2) One line at a time:

I read each sentence of my pitch at a time. Then ask myself, WHY?

Four fearless friends save a town from despair.

Okay. There is some element of plot in there. But honestly, the fact is, there is probably millions of stories this could be describing. So let’s see… why? Why do they do it?

What drives them to do it? How much despair are we talking about? Can I express that level of despair in just a few more words?

3) One WORD at a time:

Once I have the sentences I want to say on paper and I’m confident with WHAT they say, it’s time to look at HOW they say it. Am I using the right words?

We only have so many words we get to use in a pitch. And let’s be honest, as someone brought up in the comments of my last pitch, being specific leads to a longer pitch. It’s just a fact. So every word is even more important. Let’s look at the beginning of that same line:

Four fearless friends…….

Four: Does it really matter that there are four of them? Probably not. Maybe I can replace it with something more meaningful.

Fearless: Really? I couldn’t have done better than that? How did I ever think that sounded good?

Etc….

Every single word gets analyzed, condensed, replaced, sometimes even re-envisioned entirely, which ends up leading me back to step one and starting all over again.

Pitch.

…….Sigh. It’s definitely not my favorite part of the process.

But Jill’s workshop really made me feel like now, I have a plan of attack, a process, specific, tangible things to look for, to look at and to strikethrough.

And again, you know I’m a big believer that, well…. our manuscripts are worth it!

Thank you Erika for another great article to help all of us improve our skills.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Just thought I would point out why I’ve started posting interviews with published authors – Answer: I feel writers can gain useful information and ideas of what others have done to get published and maybe use something talked about during the interview to further your career. In this post I ask David L Harrison, who has over 90 children’s picture books published, about the anthologies he has participated in and educational books he has written to help children learn to read.  I hope this interview sparks some new ideas for you.

KATHY: Can you tell us about the journey you and your book “Let’s Write This Week with David Harrison” took to get published? 

DAVID:

I’m the poet laureate for Drury University, which implies that I should do something to promote poetry in particular or writing in general. While brainstorming for a project, one wag compared me to Mister Rogers and suggested that the university should create some sort of electronic program with me providing writing talk for kids based on my forty years of experience. The notion caught on.

We tested the idea with me in a classroom visiting with a student, reading a poem or two, and offering advice. We quickly acquired a producer, a studio, and Drury’s backing for the cost of professionally producing twenty DVD sessions. I wrote scripts divided into four tips each on five subjects: getting started, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and revising. Each video session lasts five minutes and is meant to be shown in the classroom to help set the stage for the teacher’s follow-up lesson.

Dr. Lauren Edmondson (interim director of the School of Education and Child Development at Drury) joined me in writing a teachers’ guide and a student writing journal to accompany the DVDs. She will also teach a graduate credit course on “Let’s Write” for those who wish to enroll online.

We’ve come a long way from the original, casual suggestion and I’m proud of the result. The kit – 20 video sessions, 1 Teachers’ Guide, 20 Student Writing Journals, and 3 of my trade books used as examples in the guide –retails for $499.00 and will be introduced at the International Reading Association annual conference in San Antonio beginning April 19. The goal is to place the kit into elementary schools as an aide to teaching writing in grades 3-5.

KATHY: I see your poetry has been included in a number of anthologies during the last two years. Did these opportunities come to you from your blog?

DAVID:

Probably a few did. My blog has 1,200+ followers and I’ve made many friends since this blog journey began in 2009. However it happens, I was in half a dozen last year plus about that many slated for 2013.

KATHY: Do authors make any money when they are included in an anthology or do people mostly do it for exposure?

DAVID:

Money? Nah. It’s fun, though, to be invited to join a group of other poets to make a new book. The editor who pulls it all together might make money if the book sells. I always hope they do! But to a certain extent this current wave of anthologies is the answer for poets to want to get their work out there where readers might see it. The poet receives a flat fee per poem or a royalty based on sales. In royalty cases, the more poets, the smaller the piece of the pie.

KATHY: How did you connect with Jill Corcoran for Dare to Dream…Change the World anthology?

DAVID:

She sent me an invitation to participate in the book she was planning. I was paired with Jane Yolen. We each wrote a poem about a young boy named Nicholas Cobb, who made a difference in the lives of others by raising money to buy coats for children in a shelter. Here’s the link to Nicholas’s website:http://www.comfortandjoytexas.org The book has already was selected as a winner for the 2013 Notable Books for a Global Society Award!

KATHY: How did the series of books with Shell Education develop?

DAVID:

Mary Jo Fresch is a professor at Ohio State University with special research interests in Spelling/Word Study, Children’s Literature, and Early Literacy. We wanted to do a book together and settled on using poetry to help preK-1 kids develop reading skills. We worked on the manuscript for some time and eventually shared it with Dona Rice at Shell Education. She and the staff liked the idea and suggested that we divide the approach into five parts: short vowels, long vowels, consonants, rimes, and consonant blends. That required me to write a total of 96 poems, each based on a distinct sound that needed to be modeled as part of that week’s lesson. Mary Jo wrote the introductory text and provided clever, practical classroom activities to follow each poem.

The last step was to record all 96 poems on CDs that are attached inside the back covers of each book. Mary Jo and I were flown to California for the recording in a studio near Shell headquarters. It was a day filled with good vibes and laughter.

KATHY: Can you tell us a little bit about Shell Education? And in what way is IRA involved?

DAVID:

Shell Education and its sister publishing imprint, Teacher Created Materials, is a strong member of the educational publishing industry. Everyone on the staff is a former teacher and that means that they understand what goes on in the classroom. They are always searching for ways to respond to the needs of teachers and their books reflect that partnership. I love working with them. Another favorite of mine is Tori Bachman at International Reading Association. Tori wears a lot of hats, including book acquisitions. Thanks to discussions between Tori and Dona, IRA is co-branding “Learning through Poetry” so that we appear in both catalogs. How cool is that!

KATHY: Would you be able to share part of one of your “Learning through Poetry” books with us?

DAVID:

Mary Jo and I will give a 55 minute presentation at IRA on this subject to help teachers see how to apply our approach in their classrooms. It begins with a poem. My job was to make sure that this was a collection of poetry for young children, not a group of sing-songy, didactic lesson-poems. In every case I began by making a list of words with the sound I needed. After staring at the list long enough, sooner or later an idea would begin to form. From there it was a matter of writing a poem the same way I always do except for the restriction of using words with the same sound as much as possible.

For example: “ack” became: 

SNAKE ATTACK

When my brother
needs a snack,
he opens every
box and pack,
gobbles every
pile and stack,
empties every
jar and sack,
looks like he
could pop
or crack,
but soon
his snack
attack
is back.

And “ing” became

TEMPTATION

Money in my pocket,
Ching a-ching ching.
What will it buy me?
Thing a-thing thing.
Might buy a cell phone,
Ring a-ring ring.
Might buy a bracelet,
Bling a-bling bling.
Might buy a chicken,
Wing a-wing wing.
Might buy an ice cream,
Ding a-ding ding.
Might buy a CD,
Sing a-sing sing.
Money in my pocket,
Ching a-ching ching!

I’ve written my share of poems inspired by a picture, a conversation, a thought, even one word. Starting from a single sound was an entertaining challenge!

KATHY: Is your new book from Holiday House titled “A Perfect Home for a Family” available for purchase?

DAVID:

Yes, as of March 1. Four years ago we had raccoons in our attic. They drove us nuts with their nightly stirrings. We fussed and fumed and finally had the roof torn off and replaced. Later I realized that from the raccoons’ perspective, we must have been quite a nuisance too. That notion is what drives the story, which is wonderfully illustrated by Italian artist Roberta Angaramo. Sometimes it pays to see things from the other fella’s side!

KATHY: What are you working on now?

DAVID:

I have a series of three poetry books going, one each for grades 3-5; three collections of original poems for trade publishers; and a new picture book trying to find its best form.

KATHY: Do you have any words of wisdom for the authors and poets who visit this blog?

DAVID:

Thanks for having me, Kathy. And thanks again for creating my website and blog spot. I didn’t set out to blog but I’ve met a lot of nice people that way.

As for advice? Old timers must guard against reminiscing about the good old days. It took me six years to sell my first piece back in the 60s so I can’t imagine that today’s market is any tougher than that! It’s different, for sure, and anyone who aspires to see his/her name on the cover of a book should spend whatever time it takes to become familiar with the current market. I preach patience. Set goals that you can reach and climb on their backs like ladder rungs as you move farther and farther up toward success. Lastly, make it your best. I’d rather write one story well than ten stories poorly. Editors feel that way too.

Thank you David for answering my interview questions and thank you for sharing so much of your poetry expertise on your blog www.davidlharrison.wordpress.com Here is David’s Website address: www.davidlharrison.com

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Just thought I would point out why I’ve started posting interviews with published authors – Answer: I feel writers can gain useful information and ideas of what others have done to get published and maybe use something talked about during the interview to further your career. In this post I ask David L Harrison, who has over 90 children’s picture books published, about the anthologies he has participated in and educational books he has written to help children learn to read.  I hope this interview sparks some new ideas for you.

KATHY: Can you tell us about the journey you and your book “Let’s Write This Week with David Harrison” took to get published? 

DAVID:

I’m the poet laureate for Drury University, which implies that I should do something to promote poetry in particular or writing in general. While brainstorming for a project, one wag compared me to Mister Rogers and suggested that the university should create some sort of electronic program with me providing writing talk for kids based on my forty years of experience. The notion caught on.

We tested the idea with me in a classroom visiting with a student, reading a poem or two, and offering advice. We quickly acquired a producer, a studio, and Drury’s backing for the cost of professionally producing twenty DVD sessions. I wrote scripts divided into four tips each on five subjects: getting started, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and revising. Each video session lasts five minutes and is meant to be shown in the classroom to help set the stage for the teacher’s follow-up lesson.

Dr. Lauren Edmondson (interim director of the School of Education and Child Development at Drury) joined me in writing a teachers’ guide and a student writing journal to accompany the DVDs. She will also teach a graduate credit course on “Let’s Write” for those who wish to enroll online.

We’ve come a long way from the original, casual suggestion and I’m proud of the result. The kit – 20 video sessions, 1 Teachers’ Guide, 20 Student Writing Journals, and 3 of my trade books used as examples in the guide –retails for $499.00 and will be introduced at the International Reading Association annual conference in San Antonio beginning April 19. The goal is to place the kit into elementary schools as an aide to teaching writing in grades 3-5.

KATHY: I see your poetry has been included in a number of anthologies during the last two years. Did these opportunities come to you from your blog?

DAVID:

Probably a few did. My blog has 1,200+ followers and I’ve made many friends since this blog journey began in 2009. However it happens, I was in half a dozen last year plus about that many slated for 2013.

KATHY: Do authors make any money when they are included in an anthology or do people mostly do it for exposure?

DAVID:

Money? Nah. It’s fun, though, to be invited to join a group of other poets to make a new book. The editor who pulls it all together might make money if the book sells. I always hope they do! But to a certain extent this current wave of anthologies is the answer for poets to want to get their work out there where readers might see it. The poet receives a flat fee per poem or a royalty based on sales. In royalty cases, the more poets, the smaller the piece of the pie.

KATHY: How did you connect with Jill Corcoran for Dare to Dream…Change the World anthology?

DAVID:

She sent me an invitation to participate in the book she was planning. I was paired with Jane Yolen. We each wrote a poem about a young boy named Nicholas Cobb, who made a difference in the lives of others by raising money to buy coats for children in a shelter. Here’s the link to Nicholas’s website:http://www.comfortandjoytexas.org The book has already was selected as a winner for the 2013 Notable Books for a Global Society Award!

KATHY: How did the series of books with Shell Education develop?

DAVID:

Mary Jo Fresch is a professor at Ohio State University with special research interests in Spelling/Word Study, Children’s Literature, and Early Literacy. We wanted to do a book together and settled on using poetry to help preK-1 kids develop reading skills. We worked on the manuscript for some time and eventually shared it with Dona Rice at Shell Education. She and the staff liked the idea and suggested that we divide the approach into five parts: short vowels, long vowels, consonants, rimes, and consonant blends. That required me to write a total of 96 poems, each based on a distinct sound that needed to be modeled as part of that week’s lesson. Mary Jo wrote the introductory text and provided clever, practical classroom activities to follow each poem.

The last step was to record all 96 poems on CDs that are attached inside the back covers of each book. Mary Jo and I were flown to California for the recording in a studio near Shell headquarters. It was a day filled with good vibes and laughter.

KATHY: Can you tell us a little bit about Shell Education? And in what way is IRA involved?

DAVID:

Shell Education and its sister publishing imprint, Teacher Created Materials, is a strong member of the educational publishing industry. Everyone on the staff is a former teacher and that means that they understand what goes on in the classroom. They are always searching for ways to respond to the needs of teachers and their books reflect that partnership. I love working with them. Another favorite of mine is Tori Bachman at International Reading Association. Tori wears a lot of hats, including book acquisitions. Thanks to discussions between Tori and Dona, IRA is co-branding “Learning through Poetry” so that we appear in both catalogs. How cool is that!

KATHY: Would you be able to share part of one of your “Learning through Poetry” books with us?

DAVID:

Mary Jo and I will give a 55 minute presentation at IRA on this subject to help teachers see how to apply our approach in their classrooms. It begins with a poem. My job was to make sure that this was a collection of poetry for young children, not a group of sing-songy, didactic lesson-poems. In every case I began by making a list of words with the sound I needed. After staring at the list long enough, sooner or later an idea would begin to form. From there it was a matter of writing a poem the same way I always do except for the restriction of using words with the same sound as much as possible.

For example: “ack” became: 

SNAKE ATTACK

When my brother
needs a snack,
he opens every
box and pack,
gobbles every
pile and stack,
empties every
jar and sack,
looks like he
could pop
or crack,
but soon
his snack
attack
is back.

And “ing” became

TEMPTATION

Money in my pocket,
Ching a-ching ching.
What will it buy me?
Thing a-thing thing.
Might buy a cell phone,
Ring a-ring ring.
Might buy a bracelet,
Bling a-bling bling.
Might buy a chicken,
Wing a-wing wing.
Might buy an ice cream,
Ding a-ding ding.
Might buy a CD,
Sing a-sing sing.
Money in my pocket,
Ching a-ching ching!

I’ve written my share of poems inspired by a picture, a conversation, a thought, even one word. Starting from a single sound was an entertaining challenge!

KATHY: Is your new book from Holiday House titled “A Perfect Home for a Family” available for purchase?

DAVID:

Yes, as of March 1. Four years ago we had raccoons in our attic. They drove us nuts with their nightly stirrings. We fussed and fumed and finally had the roof torn off and replaced. Later I realized that from the raccoons’ perspective, we must have been quite a nuisance too. That notion is what drives the story, which is wonderfully illustrated by Italian artist Roberta Angaramo. Sometimes it pays to see things from the other fella’s side!

KATHY: What are you working on now?

DAVID:

I have a series of three poetry books going, one each for grades 3-5; three collections of original poems for trade publishers; and a new picture book trying to find its best form.

KATHY: Do you have any words of wisdom for the authors and poets who visit this blog?

DAVID:

Thanks for having me, Kathy. And thanks again for creating my website and blog spot. I didn’t set out to blog but I’ve met a lot of nice people that way.

As for advice? Old timers must guard against reminiscing about the good old days. It took me six years to sell my first piece back in the 60s so I can’t imagine that today’s market is any tougher than that! It’s different, for sure, and anyone who aspires to see his/her name on the cover of a book should spend whatever time it takes to become familiar with the current market. I preach patience. Set goals that you can reach and climb on their backs like ladder rungs as you move farther and farther up toward success. Lastly, make it your best. I’d rather write one story well than ten stories poorly. Editors feel that way too.

Thank you David for answering my interview questions and thank you for sharing so much of your poetry expertise on your blog www.davidlharrison.wordpress.com Here is David’s Website address: www.davidlharrison.com

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

JILL CORCORAN is a children’s book agent with Herman Agency.
Her current interests include: high concept Young Adult and Middle Grade Thrillers, Mystery, Romance, Romantic Comedies, and Adventure manuscripts.

With an English degree  from Stanford University and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the  University of Chicago, Jill has marketed everything from sneakers to  cereal at Leo Burnett Advertising, LA Gear, Mattel, and at her own  consulting company, LAUNCH! New Product Marketing.

That marketing background seems to have helped her become a successful agent, because the books and amount of books she has sold is quite impressive.  Here is the link to take a look.  http://jillcorcoran.blogspot.com/p/recent-deals.html

What Jill is looking for New Adult authors/manuscripts.

So, what is New Adult? School Library Journal has a fabulous roundup of articles to give many but the same definition of New Adult and Goodreads has a list of popular New Adult books.

Please email your query plus the first 10 pages of your ms pasted into your email to [email protected]

Jill reps Picture Books, Chapter Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult and Crossover Young Adult (New Adult)

Here is a complete description of what Jill is looking for as of Feb 2013

Please read because Jill is being very strict to my vision of what type of books she will be agenting.

To put it bluntly, I want books, actually characters, that have legs. If you haven’t heard the term “has legs” that is marketing shorthand to mean the characters can live outside the confines of your book. They can spark a series, be transformed to the big or small screen (Herman Agency is based in NYC but I live in LA and have close ties to the Film and TV industry.), possibly go outside the library/bookstore market to gift stores, grocery stores, etc, become a genre leader rather than just another book competing in a market where discoverability is becoming the most challenging obstacle to sales and sadly some of the best writing is not rising to the top of readers’ buy lists.

All books must have excellent commercial plus literary writing. What I mean by this is an utter command of the language that is accessible to most readers–not just the brainy kids. The concept must be fresh, organic, break-through. Just another one is not going to cut it. Yes, lots of copycat books make the hit list, but I am an agent, a talent scout. I am not looking to sell copycats. I am looking to discover the next big thing.

I want complexity of character, multi-level plot and theme, believability even in the fantastic, and pacing that blinds me to time and space. I am a fan of the underdog, but the underdog doesn’t always need to be the nerd, the foster kid, the kid from the broken home. It is irritating when the popular kids are bad and the outcasts are heros. I think most kids are average. Some are more popular than others but being popular often takes a lot of work and that work spurs a host of insecurity.  Many kids define popular in different ways. Some cherish their inner and outer geek. I want “normal” teens in extraordinary circumstances (I leave the definition of normal to you:) ).

Regarding romance, I want authentic vulnerability and innocence as well as hot, steamy yearning, and in some cases, more than yearning. I want to love your characters so I understand why your characters love each other. I want to be so enmeshed with your character that when his/her heart breaks, so does mine. When your characters are kissing, or doing more than kissing, I want to feel that pull in my body too.

Please send queries to [email protected]   All emails sent to my Herman Agency email will be deleted.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

How to Improve Your Writing Voice and Characters’ Voices

Agent Jill Corcoran at the 2012 FL SCBWI Conference in Miami

Jill Corcoran talked about the difference between the author voice, which is in everything you write, and the manuscript voice, which changes according to things like tone, the target audience, and point of view.

She had us write a short scene with two characters from one point of view, then write it from the other.  It’s amazing how you can feel the difference.  Even better…this exercise can help with writer’s block! 

Character Voice

·       Make your characters distinct so you don’t always need to put in tags.   There’s a great way to test this—take the tags out of dialogue and see if you (or others) can tell who is talking.

·       Give each character something unique.  Weaving these little details in helps give dimension.

·       Readers fill in the gaps—you need to leave some white space.

Here are some other great suggestions from Jill:

·       Read outside your genre.  This helps you see styles of writing that might be great for you.

·       Make dialogue count…especially when it’s up front.

·       Try to write three pages every morning before doing anything else.

·       Play around to find the right voic

Herman Agency literary agent Jill Corcoran shares what not to do - and what you should do - during your manuscript consultation!