Fiction Writing

Let's try to write it

Fiction Writing - Let's try to write it

Tag Archives: first drafts

Writing eBooks For Children

Okay so you’re ready to write for the juvenile/middle grade market with a head full of ideas.  How you go about this is essentially up to you.  There are rules and rules are broken every few years.  Presently, the genre is saturated with fantasy and horror.  Thank heavens for Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series.  I have written 5 juvies and am working on the 6th.  Two are at various eBook providers and the others mentioned on my website.  I never did write them thinking of the market.  I wrote them as I saw them through a boy’s eyes, living and breathing them.  One nearly turned into an adult story until I toned it down.  How did I do this?  I gave the subplot somewhat less importance and took out some harder edges, and not because I had to.  I still want children to be children.  For a time the Young Adult market was really suffering.  Seemed all there was available was the Sweet Valley High series and stories about a child whose parents are divorced (or going through one) being farmed out to grandparents  and learning life lessons.  Boring to tears.  Then E.L. Stine saved readers with his Goosebumps series and all of  it’s copy-cats.  Then Harry Potter came and its copy cats.  Now we have the Twilight and Hunger Games books.  They are getting gorier and there is a lot more bloodletting.   J.K. Rowling’s  Harry Potter proves one can do without the gore.

From what I’ve seen in the genre almost anything goes.  A first time young native writer from Northern Canada wrote a book about glue-sniffing and drug-taking, etc, in his town  There is so much swearing I could barely read the thing, never mind that the story went absolutely nowhere.  But he was a native and therefore pandered to by the literati in Canada.  I think the book may have won some award and not for crudity.  Then came the recent Go The F0K To Sleep which isn’t really written for children but they may find the copy laying around the house.  I also watched a commercial which said,  “…freaking crazy…” which was a first on the tube for an ad I think.

On of my eBooks, Archie’s Gold is a mystery.  Archie’s friends are only ex-cons and criminals and street people.  I thought about making it rougher, but figured I made the mean streets mean enough.

So just write your book and see how it ends up.  Don’t make your decision until the first draft is done. Don’t let anything interfere with your creative process.  You are your own moral compass and will ultimately decide what you want to expose children to.  Unfortunately, eBooks have no gatekeepers so the reins on writers are very loose.

 

Loneliness of the Writer

Never tell anyone that you’re writing a book, going on a diet, exercising, taking a course, or quitting smoking. They’ll encourage you to death.
Lynn Johnston, For Better or For Worse, 07-15-06
Canadian cartoonist (1947 – )

When writing, your only friend is yourself.  It can’t be helped.  You empty your mind onto a page or screen, attempting to portray your world for others to see.  Setting rules for yourself is a good start: no distractions, no spell/grammar check function on, etc.  And especially being in the mood to write.  Sitting in front of a blank page or screen with no idea in your head is probably a waste of time.  I used to carry a notepads in my jackets and coats to jot down ideas that came to me when I walked or drove around.  It was my ‘madman’s diary’.  If I died and someone went through my pockets for ID they’d open this up and proclaim me insane as it was full of my own shorthand, scribbles, and references to other sections I ‘d already written.

First drafts are ugly because they’re supposed to be.  If you let anyone read them you’re asking for an ass-kicking.  Writing one page is a start, but not to be confused with writing a letter.  Writing a first draft of a book is an accomplishment that very few people do.  Crack the bubbly.  Now comes the hard work of editing.  Join an online critiquing site or a writers group in your area.  You need feedback, advice on everything from plot, theme, characters, dialogue, chronological order, structure, etc.  If you think you can do this on your own, forget it–you probably can’t.   Next week I’ll let you in on some self-editing you can accomplish alone.

With eBooks many writers have skipped this process and posted their work for sale.  It’s up to readers to download the samples and trash the offenders by posting negative reviews.  These reviews stay on the site forever.  You simply can’t hide bad editing.

Like the musician playing in the basement or the kid sitting in the car revving the engine, if you want some validation you have to put it in gear, play with someone.  If you don’t then you become a legend in your own mind.  When I played drums in a big band  I was always trying to recruit good players to come out to one of our practices, sit in and have some fun.  I’d meet a few people (dare I call them musicians?) with great equipment who said they can play this and that, and go on how good they are, blah, blah, blah, and make their own CDs to listen to themselves even more.  These people wouldn’t dare expose themselves to others, test their talent, and get into the dynamics with another musician.  Music is very challenging and skill levels are always tested in many aspects, but not in a basement.  They are deluding themselves.

As a writer, if you intend to take yourself seriously, you have to expose your work to others.  Self-editing is a dumb idea, as is getting critiqued by non-qualified relatives who won’t dare hurt your feelings.

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