Young Adult

Looking for Doors to Other Worlds

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here because I’ve been so busy writing, revising, and getting ready to launch my middle grade fantasy series, Joshua and the Lightning Road. In writing the first two books in this new series, I realized that my fascination with the possibility of “life out there” in the universe crossed over from writing dark thrillers for adults, like the Element Trilogy, to writing thrillers for kids. And my fascination has been there all along.

Anti-Rent War historical sign by my house

When I was a kid I used to sneak into people’s coat closets when visiting with my parents, hoping to find a Narnia world on the other side. At home, in the old house I grew up in, I would also huddle in the dark beneath winter coats in the hall closet. I liked to imagine an older world long gone as I hid among musty wool. If I sat long enough would I be transported there?

Our old homestead was built during the late 1700s and the center hall closet door was once the front door. On the other side of that back wall were the slate steps that rose to nowhere, disappearing into the house. If I leaned up against the back wall I envisioned the colonial people that once entered there. Ladies in poofy dresses, men in fancy breeches, farmers, and soldiers.

And farmers and soldiers did indeed march past our house in the Anti-Rent War of 1839 – 1846 when the tenants revolted against the Lord of the Van Rensselaer Manor! This rebellion was led against the old patroon system of estate landownership and protest took the form of harassment of rent collectors by farmers disguised as “Indians,” who shot seized livestock and broke up rent sales. When a deputy sheriff was killed, martial law was declared.

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Our hitching post welcomed visitors for 200 years.

Long after the sounds of feudal strife faded away, the ruts of the original premier-pharmacy.com/product/propecia/ road to our house were still barely visible in our yard, and at the top of our driveway sat the old stone hitching post where travelers would tie their horse. Sadly, a drunk driver crashed and broke that hitch in two one rainy night, but I take it with me wherever I move.

Now, as an author, I get to step into another world in any room, anywhere. I have to say, it’s pretty cool to live out my childhood fantasies as a writer of fantasy for grownups and kids.

And I still search for that door to a new world, a world I create.

I stood in awe recently before the mysterious doors of the Bryn Athyn cathedral. Doors that made me wonder…in another world or time, what would happen behind them? These doors inspired the setting in my Joshua and the Lightning Road series.

Gearing up now to write the final book in the Element Trilogy, my mind is spinning with new doors to a different world. I wonder what my inspiration will be…I can’t wait to find out.

THE DOORS OF BRYN ATHYN:

Ancient ones that seem to be watching over us.

Notice the crosses finger-marked at the top of each door. Looks like no door I’d want to be on the wrong side of. A blessed door or a cursed door?

What could unfold behind such a door? Chivalry, death, secrets, honor?

A door of glass and metal. Fragile and might come together in beauty and strength.

“It is the mission of each true knight…
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.” – The Man of La Mancha

So is true for every writer. And to find the door behind which their imagination can survive in other worlds.

Do you seek to escape through doors to other worlds like me? Which is your favorite escape – movies, books, music, theater, or other?

More tips from the masters: On POV, character & vocabulary

By Donna Galanti

As I near the end of my Write a YA Novel in 9 Months class led by authors Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba, I thought I’d share you with what I’ve learned along the way.

Here is part 2 of techniques and tips I’ve learned on writing for the YA or MG market.

Which POV?
1^st person can be limiting. It’s a challenge to not break the one character’s POV. With 1^st person you must remain in the same voice throughout the story. Check to make sure that only the thoughts of your MC are delivered.

There are benefits to writing YA/MG in 1^st person. It brings us directly close to the character, and we all know that kids are self-involved. Second, you can create internal exposition which allows for us to discover what’s going on beneath the MC. Third, it keeps us in suspense as we can’t see all that is going on.

Tip: Use dialogue scenes to give us other character’s POV without breaking from 1^st person voice.

Writing in 3^rd person can also be limiting. It doesn’t present the opportunity to give us all of the MC’s thoughts. The benefits are that you can hold back secrets and we can see the story from different angles. It can create suspense as we can see other parallel events happening that the MC is not aware of.

Tip: Pull off books from your book shelf and see how characters are introduced. Does it work for you? Copy what that author did.

Exercise: Write a passage where you introduce a character.

On Creating Character
Don’t name two characters starting with same first letter. For example, David, and Deena. Or Jack and Jill. “Jack and Jill ran up the hill to kill the zombie.” We laugh instead of feeling pharmacy-no-rx.net/cipro_generic.html scared for our characters pharmacy-no-rx.net/accutane_generic.html because their names are so silly.

Got Character?

And please don’t use any of these names: Fred, Ted, Ed. “Howdy,” Fred said. “Howdy yourself,” Ted said.” You get the issue here.

Have the MC describe how he sees or feels about other characters. In doing so it reveals his own character.

Show us character in the details the MC sees. The hardness of a chair beneath him, how he feels about an object, a photo the MC carries around, or the smell that reminds him of his dog back home, etc.

Stay away from clichés such as labeling a character a bully. Go deeper than that.

Simple gestures can say volumes. For example, “Josh took two steps back while Amy took two steps forward.”

If writing in 1^st POV, how does the MC see the other characters through his eyes? This tells us volumes about the other characters and also about the MC.

Exercise: Write down your major and minor characters then list how they would describe themselves through their own eyes.

Exercise: Describe something from your MC’s perspective.

Vocabulary for YA/MG
Write smart. Don’t dumb down the language for kids. Kids read up.

Make sure your language is appropriate for the age. Try not to write “trendy” language. For example: “That’s fat. Cool. Rad.” It could make your book outdated later.

Exercise: Revive memories of being the age of your YA characters. Draw a picture of the neighborhood you grew up in, pin pointing details. Remember what you saw, what you felt, and how you reacted to events there.

Tip: Take a scene and strip out all words but the dialogue to see how your character’s talk. This reveals the beat of character’s words and speech. Then flow it through your book.

Write a YA Novel in 9 Months: Tips from the masters

By Donna Galanti

As I near the end of my Write a YA Novel in 9 Months class led by authors Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba, I thought I’d share you with what I’ve learned along the way. I’ve met a great bunch of writers across genres in this class and I am happy to report I finished my book in 7 months!

Here is part 1 of techniques and tips I’ve learned
on writing for the YA or MG market.

Getting started. Before you write…

Recent trends in writing for YA/MG audience
MG horror is hot now, especially 2-4 books deals in a series running about 40K words each. Think Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book or R.L. Stein books.
Books are released in e-book first, then if good show doing a print run.
YA e-anthologies are hot! Allows kids to read a story in class and review real time vs. a novel. (Adult anthologies more for small press). Check out Campfire Weenies tales on this.
Pitching is on now year round to agents, no usual slow times in August and after Thanksgiving. Agents continue to seek next best book.

Genres (YA = Young Adult MG = Middle Grade)
Remember kids ‘read up’
Younger YA – 12-15
Older YA – 15 -17
MG – 8-12

Outline your book
Write a chapter outline with bullet points for each chapter.
Create doc for revision montauk-monster.com/pharmacy/acyclovir notes so you can fast draft without stopping to edit.
Write a preliminary synopsis of 1-3 pages of prose, single spaced. This is where you talk yourself through the plot. This isn’t the finished synopsis so don’t worry, just for plotting purposes.
Write book logline, that 1 sentence pitch.
TIP: Write 1^st and last chapter first. Write to the end of the book so you know direction to go in.

Promo copy
Write back book jacket. Review similar books to get an idea.
Write 1 paragraph description of possible next 2 books in the series.
Create submission list (sub list) of a dozen books that are similar to yours. This is where your book would fit on a bookshelf. Books must be recent successes and in print and in age range to your book. Check out LibraryThing for authors in your genre where you can search by genre/sub genres.

Critique Partner
Find a partner who writes similar to you and once you’ve written the first 25 pages, swap out with each other

Resources:
Check out verlakay.com message boards, a place for children’s writers and illustrators to gather and share information, help each other and have fun while learning the business of writing and illustrating for children.
Books – Rotten Rejections, 20 Master Plots and Exercises, Writing Treatments that Sell.

Now start writing!

Challenge yourself: write in a different genre

By Donna Galanti

: My son Joshua, finally loves reading

Okay, this was a holiday week and that meant very limited writing time with my 8 year old home. It was also the week I decided to challenge myself (and I don’t mean finding new ways to protect my stomach muscles when “Play with me mommy” precedes a full-on launched tackle by an 80 lb. boy – see him there —>.)

No, it was the week I took a risk and put aside my new suspense novel to write middle grade. And not just write a children’s book at whim, but take a class on writing a Young Adult Novel in 9 Months with Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba. A class with homework, deadlines, and peers to be accountable to with my writing and theirs. (classmates, I swear I will review your work this week and upload mine!)

Write YA? I knew nothing about YA. Just who are these YA’s anyways? My son is short a few years. What angst does a 12 year old boy have? What are his thoughts, his fears, and his random thoughts?

I wasn’t sure but damned if I wouldn’t find out. I soon found myself gorging on some good stuff (The Lightning Thief, The Youngest Templar, The Magnificent 12, The Magic Thief) and some not so favorite stuff (Spyderwick Chronicles, Lemony Snicket) and was like WOW – I want to be 12 again (maybe) and a boy (a former therapist pointed that out already).

I scrambled to come up with a book montauk-monster.com/pharmacy/ventolin idea and quickly became entranced with creating my plot, chapter outline, other worlds, characters….umm…but at some point I knew I would actually have to start writing in that 12 year old boy’s voice.

But wait, again…. What POV do these books I like have? I had only written before in third person. I quickly found out that first person POV for YA/MG has a distinct advantage. Why? It’s more personal and about the main character (and I sure know that with kids it’s all about them). Not sure what age that ends but I think it has something to do with becoming a parent.

I realized I liked certain books because they were written in the first person POV and drew me in right away. I was them. I was in their head, their world. (Oh, to be 12 again…and then skip 13-18).

And ACTION. 12 year old boys want action. Chasing, running, hiding, transforming, kicking butt, conquering the bad dude. No getting bogged down in descriptive prose and relationship blah-blah-blah. What fun!

I had found something new. Something I have fun writing. And my son is eating it up. And if writing isn’t fun AND challenging, why do it?

Are you challenging yourself to write something new you never did before?

What’s your new beginning? And so I began….

I was 12 the summer that lightning stole my best friend. Lightning. Pretty amazing stuff, you say, right? Sure, if you’re from this world and don’t know any better like everyone else. But not me.

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