GUEST POST: "The Mystery of Reading" by Izzi Breigh

 

No story is whole until it’s been read. 

That’s why every author wants readers to get sucked into their book. Once you’ve achieved that, the story stops being letters and periods arranged into sentences. It becomes characters, each with purpose and limitations, exploring brand new places. The story escapes the page and lives.

For me as a reader, I find the most effective vehicle into any story is through mystery. It triggers a combination of confusion and excitement that urges me forward and invites me to participate in the narrative.

There’s nothing quite so exciting as the time between putting an unfinished book down and picking it back up; that’s when the wondering and guessing happens.

Sleepwalkers, my middle-grade fantasy, asks the question: Where do we go when we dream? 

And guess what, it answers it too! 

I take the tricks I enjoy as a reader and employ mystery throughout. I want readers to ask themselves why are all of these bizarre events occurring, how are they connected, and how does a haunted house mystery turn into an other-worldly adventure. Mystery within a story pulls a reader back to the page with a drive to bring everything into clearer focus and understand the story better through each reveal.

Mystery also has a way of introducing you to characters you can never quite be sure of until the very end, and once you get there, you feel sheepish for having ever doubted them at all. Other characters, you will congratulate yourself for being suspicious of. And once the mystery has given you allegiances and enemies, you can explore the larger world they inhabit.

I am someone so prone to mystery, I have a silly habit of making the least mysterious books mysterious by simply starting in the middle. I know this could be considered a huge no-no, but it gives me the opportunity to wonder what came before, an instant mystery. 

Perhaps I am experiencing the book in a way the author never intended, but the author is only half of the puzzle. The other half belongs to you. 

I don’t believe there is any wrong way to read a book. It will always be a collaboration between the author and audience, which makes each reader’s experience its own mystery. 

What mystery will you solve next?

Izzi Breigh, raised by a family of peacocks, grew up on a rutabaga farm. She now resides in a small cottage made entirely of pinecones. Izzi enjoys knitting shirts for starfish, rooms without corners, and peddling time. Her day job is filling hourglasses with precisely the right amount of sand, which she sells for 2 copper pennies every Saturday at her local flea market. Hide and seek is her favorite sport, and though she has repeatedly spotted Waldo, she has yet to figure out where in the world is Carmen Sandiego.

You can find Izzi by following the scent of fresh pinecones or by peeking through any strange magnifying glasses you come across at your own local flea market. Alternatively, she can be found online at:

Instagram: sleepwalkerhq

Twitter: sleepwalkerhq

Following your dreams has never been more dangerous

You know this pattern:

Go to school.

Go home.

Go to sleep.

You know where school is, where home is, but where is sleep? Is it a place like any other? That secret has been long kept by the Sleepwalkers and hidden from the waking world. In the dead of night, the Sleepwalkers roam the Round, keeping children like themselves safe from the nightmares lurking in sleep. They have never lost one of their own...until now.

It's the summer of '86 and 11-year-old Ellie Dasher is not a Sleepwalker. She doesn't know who they are or what they do. She couldn't find Inzien on a map or tell you what a Jaghound looks like. She's just a kid, trying on a new town, with an imaginary friend who might not be imaginary. It takes one fateful night for Ellie to learn that dreams have sharp teeth and, yes, they do bite.

Sleepwalkersonly.com

GUEST POST: "Help! My Novel Falls Between Genres" by Lisa Williams Kline

Maybe you’ve written a novel about a thirteen or fourteen-year-old and you’ve been sending it out and getting responses from editors that your story “falls between genres.” What does that mean, and what can you do?

That happened to me, and here’s that story.

I enjoy writing for tweens, or thirteen or fourteen-year-olds, because this is the age when we wear our hearts on our sleeves, when every emotion feels so vivid. It’s a time when many young people are first navigating experiences on their own without the watchful eyes of their parents. Because of the intensity of the emotions, I’ve always loved writing about this age.

 

In marketing my books, though, I’ve found that this age is a tricky one in the publishing world. Middle grade books, aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds, can focus on the family and might feature friendships. YA books, aimed at fifteen-to-eighteen-year-olds, focus more on friendships, the world outside the family, and may include romances. Plus, characters can drive. What happens to the thirteen and fourteen-year-olds? What do they read?

 

Well, my books, I say. 

But not so fast. I had received some interest in one of my manuscripts, about an eighth grader’s first crush, but received no offers. One editor at a Big 4 publisher really liked it and asked for an R and R (revise and resubmit), but asked me to age up my character. One of the reasons she gave was that that Lizzy, my main character, dissected a fetal pig in eighth grade and she thought of that as high school curriculum. Other editors had some similar kinds of comments. I had the feeling that I was getting close but something was missing and I didn’t know what it was. I tried my hand at the R and R, but in the end, she still rejected the manuscript.

I finally figured out that there are pretty definitive divisions in the publishing world between “upper middle-grade” or “tween” and “YA,” and that my book was in a no-man’s-land between them. My book had some pretty mature themes, such as serious pranks played by some of the students during April Fool’s week, and themes around carrying flour babies, which was a unit in health class to encourage students to think hard about sexual exploration. Even though young people (in my opinion) are thinking about crushes and other more adult things at that time, the gatekeepers – the parents, librarians, and teachers – don’t want those topics in books for an upper middle-grade or tween audience that an eight or nine-year old (in the eight to twelve-year-old category for middle-grade) might be reading.

I get that.

Eventually, I did sell that book and it became One Week of You. I thought, “Aha! I’ve beaten the ‘falling between genres’ problem.” But no, I hadn’t.  One of the first things my editors asked me to do was to make Lizzy, my main character, older. In their offer letter, they said, “We’d like her to be sixteen.”  The reason they gave was simple – YA books sell better than tween books.

I was overwhelmed. I was quite tied to reality–Lizzy has to carry a flour baby for her health class and the model for my story had been my daughters’ eighth grade health classes. Both daughters had to carry five-pound bags of flour everywhere they went for a week during their health classes, to simulate what it might be like to have to care for a baby, and they had been thirteen and in middle school at the time. (The guys had to carry them, too, just in case you think the curriculum was sexist in addition to being kind of silly). At first I didn’t think I could do this. I felt that the maturity level of a sixteen-year-old is quite different from the maturity level of a thirteen-year-old.

But I agreed to try it. So, to do this revision, what did I do?

I had a pretty long talk with my editors. I compromised with them and we decided Lizzy would be fifteen, turning sixteen over the summer. (The book takes place in April). I found out this age is what’s called “young YA.” We decided she would be in ninth grade, but that she was fifteen because she had been held back before kindergarten because she had been a preemie and was very small for her age. I knew two girls who had been friends of my daughters who were a year older than their peers, so this felt authentic. And Lizzy feels self-conscious about this, about being small and being a preemie and being thought to be immature by many of her peers.

I left the science and health class scenes as they were, because they were now both believable curriculum for the ninth grade, freshman year of high school.

Transportation was an issue. In the original draft, I had Lizzy’s big brother taking her to school, picking her up and generally driving her around. Those driving scenes were key to their relationship and my story. I had to figure out a reason he’d still be doing this, if she was fifteen and should at least have taken drivers’ ed, so decided that she had been so busy with cheerleading and other extracurricular activities that she hadn’t had time to take it. I have a friend who corroborated that this has happened to quite a few of her daughter’s busy friends these days, so this felt authentic as well.

Then I went over the entire manuscript, page by page, mentally thinking of Lizzy as fifteen rather than thirteen. Sometimes I read the scenes out loud. A fifteen-year old would interact with her parents differently than a younger character, and also her friends. She would have more independence to use a cell phone, post on social media, and to go places with just her friends. Maturity levels run the gamut in high school, and, because Lizzy was small for her age, it felt all right to me for her to be on the “immature” side of fifteen.

In the end, over a period of several months, I transformed my manuscript from tween to YA. Because of the fairly mature subject matter in my book, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

And so now Lizzy is fifteen, a freshman in high school, rather than an eighth grader. But she’s still Lizzy, the anxious and forgetful goody-two-shoes character I had originally imagined.  I think of her as a “young” freshman, fairly protected by her family life.

And the truth is, the thirteen and fourteen-year-olds often “read up.” Thirteen and fourteen-year-olds will still see themselves in the reading experience and get to imagine themselves as somewhere slightly further along their journey than they are. So Lizzy’s story is still one that they will enjoy, and my editors are happy that the audience for the book has been expanded.

(To learn more about the differences between genres, read this comprehensive article by an agent I respect named Marie Lamba called “The Key Differences Between Middle Grade and Young Adult.”https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/the-key-differences-between-middle-grade-vs-young-adult)

Click here to hear Episode 130 of the Middle Grade Ninja podcast featuring Literary Agent Marie Lamba.

And download One Week of the Heart for free until the end of September.

Lisa Williams Kline wanted to become a writer ever since second grade, when she wrote and illustrated "The Adventures of Little Horse and Little Lamb," on large-lined paper. A graduate of Duke University, she is now the author of ten books for young people, including Eleanor Hill, winner of the North Carolina Juvenile Literature Award, Princesses of Atlantis, Write Before Your Eyes, One Week of You, the novella One Week of the Heart, and the five-book Sisters in All Seasons series. Lisa lives with her veterinarian husband and a spoiled dog and a talented cat who can open doors (but doesn't close them behind him). Their daughters visit frequently with their dogs and as can be imagined they have a howling good time.

Lizzy has an unforgettable week during the summer before her freshman year of high school in this lighthearted prequel to Lisa Williams Kline’s One Week of You.

For fifteen-year-old Lizzy Winston, summer is the time to do what she loves most: hang with the people who know her best. But this year, summer science camp with her best friend Kelly turns out to bring more drama than she bargained for.

Kelly and Lizzy made a pact years before: they will never act like fools because of boys. They want to become doctors after all, and they don't have time to flirt. But this summer, Lizzy has her first crush and learns that your brain can’t always control your heart—and sometimes choosing one love means losing another.

Old friendships are put to the test as new ones bloom in this sweet novella that reminds us of how much one heart can grow in only a week.

“In One Week of You, Lisa Williams Kline perfectly channels the inner workings of the young adult mind, complete with every quivering ounce of angst, fear, and self-doubt.” -Frank Morelli, author of No Sad Songs

LisaWilliamsKline.com

GUEST POST: "Writing Underwater, Light-up Pens, and Other Tricks, Tools and Strategies for Busy Writers" by Ann Searle Horowitz

There’s something about swimming laps that gets my creative juices flowing. When I first start the warm-up, my mind is the proverbial blank slate. Then a solution to something I’ve been working on suddenly pops in my head: a title, scene, chapter cliffhanger, character name, or plot twist for my WIP. And for the rest of my swim, I employ every strategy I know (including mnemonics and you name it) NOT to forget my (possibly) brilliant insight.

So while I most certainly do write underwater in my head, I don’t actually write underwater.

I know my day for underwater writing is coming. A friend who also swims has a device that allows him to listen to podcasts and audiobooks underwater. I'm getting close, but I'm not there yet.

Instead, after I swim the first place I go is . . . the front pocket of my swim bag. This is where I keep paper and pen so I can capture any productive thoughts. Like the following logline for my debut fantasy-adventure, Trident, finalized (in my head) in the pool back in 2018:

After Richard Tomlin’s new swim goggles transport him to Atlantis, the 12-year-old is thrust into a war to save the Lost City and the planet.

Not a bad yield for a 50-minute workout.

When not swimming, I’m busy with a hundred other things, like every overscheduled person on the planet these days. I had to be creative and smart about finding time to write my book. Here’s how I got to the finish line with Trident, without getting divorced, losing my day job, or being reported for child neglect (proud mom of three kids, one with special needs).

1. Make daily writing a #1 priority – The only way to tap into your story’s flow, and stay there, is to write every day. It’s okay if you don’t write much, but do make it a habit. Even busy people can find 15 minutes every day to write.

2. Read, read, read some more – Beg, buy or borrow every bestseller, locally popular, and well-reviewed book in your genre you can get your hands on. This is especially important for first-time authors. You’ll learn from and be motivated by the quality of writing. Busy folks can make time to read during breakfast or before bed, or listen to an audiobook on the treadmill.

3. Set deadlines/writing goals – Especially when you’re swamped, it’s easy to push off daily “To Do’s” deemed unnecessary for basic survival, like writing. To hold yourself accountable, set your top writing goal for the coming year and make it challenging (e.g., self-publish novel by December 1st). Now back up and break this big, hairy writing and publishing goal into manageable phases, giving each phase a deadline (e.g., finish chapter 20 by end of July). Be sure to WRITE DOWN your big goal and interim deadlines. And honestly assess your progress every 3 months. In the end, organizing this way compels busy you to focus and work more efficiently.

4. Join a writers group – These groups meet regularly, often monthly. You are expected to bring your WIP to every meeting, forcing steady writing. But it’s not a huge time commitment, plus the encouragement and feedback is invaluable.

5. Listen to conversations – When you’re waiting for your coffee order, spy on the pod of tweens in line in front of you—not in a creepy way, but to eavesdrop the language they use, learn what topics are vital to them, and observe how they interact. It’s research while you wait.

6. Carry a notepad – Keep one in your car, one in your swimming/workout bag, one downstairs in your house and one upstairs, one in your briefcase, one in your lunchbox, one next to your shower, one adjacent to any other place you might sit while in the bathroom, one in your, well, you get the idea. Write your ideas as soon as you have them or they will be lost in the ensuing chaos—an extraordinarily frustrating experience.

(Full notepad-carrying disclosure: I acknowledge my reliance on old-school paper and pen is probably atypical. But I can’t use my phone to take notes after I swim; it would get wet. And phones are not allowed on deck when I work as a swim coach.)

7. Invest in a light-up pen – A genius invention for writers who brainstorm while sleeping, and need to capture ideas ASAP when they jolt awake before sunrise or in the middle of the night. One click activates a mini flashlight that writes, sparing the person sleeping next to you (see divorce reference above) the bright light (bulb) of inspiration. It also circumvents taking nighttime notes via phone which can, in turn, lead to peeking at stressful, non-sleepy work emails.

8. Take a break – When writing feels like a slog, and you’re truly stuck, body movement is proven to enhance creativity. Get up and stretch, take a short walk, grab a shower. It’s worth the extra few minutes. Then sit your butt back down in the chair and write for 15.

This week I had my first pool workout since the COVID-19 quarantine. So let’s circle back to swimming. Better still, think of what makes you feel good—singing, baking, running, meditation, yoga—and build it into your weekly schedule. It may turn out to be your most productive writing time.

Ann Searle Horowitz was a high school All American swimmer, and is a mother of multiples. She admits to knowing far too much about goggles and the twin bond, both of which provided inspiration for Trident. When not working on its sequel, she coaches YMCA swimming, plays team tennis, and hangs out with her husband and three kids at their home just outside of New York City.

As a young reader Ann could often be found in her basement fort, bingeing on Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. Now she can be found online at https://annshorowitz.wixsite.com/author

Ann is also on FB (https://www.facebook.com/AnnSearleHorowitzAuthor/) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-searle-horowitz-5a75555/)

Twelve-year-old Richard Tomlin has almost given up on finding his dad. Instead, he focuses all of his energy on being the youngest swimmer ever on his team to qualify for Junior Olympics.

But everything changes when his new goggles transport him to the Lost City of Atlantis!

Confronting shapeshifters and dark magical forces, Richard channels his inner science geek and the power of positive thinking to stay alive. As he struggles to tame the magic of his goggles, his strong-willed twin, Lucy, finds a way to join him under the sea, and the siblings are thrust into the War of Generations.

To win the war—and save the planet—Richard must embrace his role in an ancient prophecy. Problem is, the prophecy appears to predict his own death. So what’s a warrior to do?

Trident, written for readers age 8-12, and building an unanticipated but welcome adult following, is available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Trident-Ann-Searle-Horowitz/dp/1734150319

Barnes & Noble at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trident-ann-searle-horowitz/1135240413

And on the shelves at Arcade Booksellers in Rye, NY.

AnnsHorowitz.Wixsite.com/Author

GUEST POST: "I Never Went to School in My Pajamas: The Story of a Homeschooled Author" by Kristiana Sfirlea

Hi, everyone! My name is Kristiana Sfirlea, and I am the author of Legend of the Storm Sneezer, a middle grade fantasy involving time travel and things that go bump in the night. Oh, and I was homeschooled.

Once upon a time, that statement would’ve drawn out the usual reactions: 1) The dubious, “How did you socialize?” 2) The horror-struck, “Did you go crazy spending that much time with your family?” and—my personal favorite—3) The secretly wistful, “Did you get to do school in your jammies?”

Reactions such as these were once pinnacles of the homeschooling experience. Amazing what a world-wide pandemic can do to even the longest-standing traditions. What was originally thought of as a peculiar subgroup of students across the U.S. is now, for the moment, the majority. (That maniacal laughter you hear in the background? That isn’t the sound of a thousand vindicated homeschoolers. Honest!) But in all seriousness, homeschooling is no walk in the park.

Actually, I take that back. My mom took us on many walks in the park to explore science lessons with our own hands, and it was the best!

My point is, homeschooling is hard work and a big responsibility. So, to all the homeschoolers out there—parents and kids—who are experiencing this form of teaching for the first time, I’d like to encourage you. I’d like to share how homeschooling helped make me the author that I am.

The Guidance of Personal Attention

My siblings and I have very different interests. My sister is a hairdresser and a mom of three. My brother manages a storage facility and has crazy good—and much sought after—skills in tech support. I’m a full-time writer. We’re all proud of what we do, and we knew early on what we wanted to be when we grew up. How? Because our amazing mom (and incredibly supportive dad) worked with us daily, paid attention to our strengths and growing interests, and helped us focus and excel in those areas.

No, that doesn’t mean my mom let me skip Math lessons just because I liked English ten zillion times better. It means she made sure I learned the basics of all my subjects but encouraged me specially in my writing.

The power of a parent’s personal attention cannot be overstated. By helping me discover my passions and talents, my homeschooling mom helped shape the course of my life at an age where most kids aren’t thinking any further than what’s for lunch that day.

Love of Reading

Reading changes lives. It wakes up the brain to imagination and creativity. It enables you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see things from another perspective. It opens the door to compassion and empathy. It challenges you to form opinions and support them with a sound mind.

Reading. Is. Important.

And reading is often forgotten about.

But not by my mom. She read books out loud to us during lunch every day. We read books out loud at night as a family. We checked out so many books at the library that we had our own dedicated box in the back. She made reading fun.

But more than that, she made reading essential. And in doing so, she armed her kids with one of life’s greatest weapons: the ability to pursue knowledge.

My love of reading, which grew its roots during my homeschooling years, has blossomed into a love for creating books aimed at reminding readers why reading is so important. And it’s a calling I thank God for every day.

Thinking Outside the Box

Homeschoolers are oddballs.

You can say it. We really don’t mind! The truth is, homeschoolers do come across as different. We’re known for branching out from mainstream ideas and accepted structures. Independent thinking comes more easily when you aren’t part of a system or lunchroom clique or the expectations of stereotypes.

I think deep down every person wants the world to know that they are their own unique self with their own unique thoughts and their own unique gifts to benefit the lives of those around them. But not everyone grows up in an environment that encourages such thinking. I was blessed to grow up in such an environment through homeschooling.

As a writer, this independent mindset gave me the joy and freedom to spill my imagination across the page as wildly and as passionately as I could without fear of rejection because I had always been encouraged to be myself and nothing less. Of course, the reality of an adult is that I was rejected many times while querying my manuscript on the very basis of my story’s imagination (“too quirky” was a phrase that came up all too often during my years in the query trenches). But because as a child, my mother—my teacher—embraced my imagination, nurturing and encouraging it, teaching me through her faith in the God who gave it to me that it was something good, I was able to persevere through every rejection. My confidence shook and my heart broke over and over, but I kept going.

And the amazing agent and amazing publisher I found along the way were worth every blow to my ego. With their support, I hope to produce all sorts of quirky, imaginative stories that will help kids unlock their own imaginations and dare to think differently.

Self-motivation and Discipline

I never went to school in my pajamas.

Disclaimer: There is nothing wrong with homeschooling in your pajamas. But for me, personally, whenever someone who went to “regular” school asked me if I did school in my jammies, the righteous indignation that flared inside me made me feel like a ten-foot bonfire. What did they think homeschooling was? An excuse to laze around the house in our PJs, watching TV and doing our schoolwork whenever we “felt” like it? Like weekdays were one big extension of Saturday mornings? “We have structure!” I wanted to scream. “My mom gives us chores and schedules and goals everyday—that’s how you get stuff done!” I was furious that my friends thought my schooling experience was inferior…and madder still that they seemed to want this “pajama schooling” lifestyle themselves.

Yes, I learned all the basics of Math, Science, English, Social Studies, History, and Geography through homeschooling. But my mom didn’t just teach us school skills. She taught us life skills. She taught us all about self-motivation, discipline, and setting goals. Her dream as a homeschooling mom wasn’t to simply build our minds. She wanted to build our character and our faith so that her well-loved and well-taught children could step into the world as thoughtful, purpose-driven adults.

Her lessons led to me receiving my first offer of publication for Legend of the Storm Sneezer at age 17. Those same lessons helped me see that it wasn’t the right fit for me, that there was something even better if I had patience and the perseverance to work for it. And many years later, what my mom taught me during homeschool would help me recognize the right offer of publication when it came along.

So, if you’re out there trying homeschooling for the first time and you feel overwhelmed, don’t quit! Keep at it. If I could redo my schooling experience a hundred times, I would choose homeschooling every time. And remember, it isn’t about keeping a perfect schedule. It’s about learning—and learning to love learning in every moment.

And if you love learning in your pajamas, go for it! No judgement here. ;)

Teacher Guide

Some of my best memories from being homeschooled are of the teacher guides and Unit Studies my mom put together for the books we were reading. So of course I had to construct one for my MG fantasy novel,Legend of the Storm Sneezer!My sincerest hope is that this guide will be a tool in helping families experience the same joy of homeschooling that I had all my school years with my own family.

Link: https://www.kristianasquill.com/teacher-reader-resources

Legend Seeker. Part-time Ghost Hunter. Time Traveler.

Thirteen-year-old Rose Skylar sneezed a magical storm cloud at birth, and it’s followed her around ever since. But when "Stormy" causes one too many public disasters, Rose is taken to Heartstone, an asylum for unstable magic. Its location? The heart of a haunted forest whose trees have mysteriously turned to stone.

They say the ghosts are bound to the woods … then why does Rose see them drifting outside the windows at night? And why is there a graveyard on the grounds filled with empty graves? Guided by her future selves via time traveling letters, Rose and Marek—best friend and potential figment of her imagination—must solve the mystery of the specters and the stone trees before the ghosts unleash a legendary enemy that will make their own spooks look like a couple of holey bed sheets and destroy Heartstone Asylum.

Letters from the future are piling up. Rose can’t save Heartstone herself. However, five of herselves, a magical storm cloud, and a guardian angel who might very well be imaginary? Now that’s a silver lining.

But will they find what killed the ghosts before what killed the ghosts finds them?

Amazon - https://amzn.to/3btbuEY

Bookshop.org - https://bit.ly/2AuY6U6

Indiebound - https://bit.ly/2y2pAiU

Barnes & Noble -https://bit.ly/2y4dA0v

As an author, Kristiana Sfirlea knows what it means to get in character. She spent five years volunteering as a historical reenactor and trying her best not to catch her skirts on fire as a colonial girl from the 1700s (leading cause of death at the time next to childbirth). Working at a haunted house attraction, she played a jumping werewolf statue, a goblin in a two-way mirror, and a wall-scratcher—so if she’s standing very still, growling, checking her reflection, or filing her nails on your wall, be alarmed. Those are hard habits to break.

Kristiana's speculative flash fiction has been published by Havok, and her debut novel Legend of the Storm Sneezer is a whimsical Middle Grade fantasy involving time travel and things that go bump in the night. She dreams of the day she can run her own mobile bookstore. Or haunted house attraction. Or both. Look out, world—here comes a haunted bookmobile! (And this is precisely why writers should never become Uber drivers.) She loves Jesus, her family, and imaginary life with her characters.

KristianaSquill.com

GUEST POST: "How to Quickly Write the Fantasy Fiction Novel of Your Dreams: A Guide" by Angelina Allsop

So you are setting out to write a novel and become a published author. Congrats to you! Writing fantasy fiction can be a lot fun, but be warned, it is quite a bit of work. Fear not, with some planning, trade craft, and guidance, you can finish your novel this year!

Before you start anything, do this!

Decide these three things:

1. Beyond the general genre of fantasy, what world you want to write in? Are you working within the world of espionage (think Etiquette and Espionage), Assassins (The Assassin's Blade), Witches (The Line), teenage high school drama (The Vampire Diaries), technology (Mortal Engines)?

2. What is the big goal that needs to be accomplished? Does the hero need to stop a bomb, get the girl,  assassinate someone, etc?

3. Why? What horrible thing will happen if the hero fails to accomplish the goal? In other words, tell me why I should care. 

4. -Optional- Adding a deadline or a ‘ticking timer’ usually helps push the story along and hook your readers till the very end.

These three things are imperative to a story line. Without them, you don’t have a story. You can’t even make a short story without these basic elements. 

Do the prep-work

If you want to write a novel quickly, with minimal hick-ups (ie major story structure problems and redos), take the time to really develop your outline and do the prep work.Not everyone loves working with an outline, but I freaking love it. 

I consistently had major story structure issues before I changed the way that I did my prep work. After reading 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron, I changed my methods and it did wonders for my writing speed, editing speed, and the overall quality of my writing. 

Prep-work: The outline

DECIDE THE STRUCTURE OF YOUR NOVEL

1. I start my novels on ‘the day something different happened’
2. Introduction Phase- I have a set up phase that lists the major goal, introduce all main characters, and show the time constraint
3. Game changer
4. Things get worse phase
5. Game changer
6. We might have found a way out of this mess…. Proactive Phase
7. Game changer
8. Final battle phase, conclusion, carry out plan
9. Story ending

a. Resolution – this is the period after the final scene that shows the main characters reaction to everything. This can be happy, relieved, or mournful, but it gives the reader (and the characters) time to adjust to all that has happened.

OUTLINE STEPS

Now that I have the basic skeleton of the story, its time to fill it in more. Here are the steps I take to create my outline:

1. I make sure I have answered my 3 questions (What’s the world I want to write in, What is the goal/mission that has to happen, What big bad thing will happen if we don’t accomplish the goal)

2. –Optional- Create my working title

3. I list out 2-4 main characters, 1-2 Antagonists, and as many power players as I know I need at this point. I answer my character questions (listed below).

4. I write the ending. Then, I write the beginning. 

5. I fill in with the scenes that I already know. This usually goes pretty quickly. 

6. I do my setting and world building work (see more below)

a. Build my world

b. Create a map

c. List systems 

7. I fill in the holes until I get stuck- I’ll take note what I don’t know yet 

8. I create a timeline (list relevant historical information) 

9. I make a scene list

10. I summarize chapters and do a “boredom check” . ie. If I was a reader, would this section be boring? I’ll add and cut sections as needed

11. I list my resolution

12. I start writing!

Prep-work: Believable characters

Characters have dimension. Almost all people in the world have likes, dislikes, and dreams. We’re almost all are or have been bitter about. What are our flaws? Think about these things when you write about your characters. It's not really important to go through all of the steps with minor characters, but with major ones, like Dumbledore, for example, can be very useful and make your story and characters more believable. 

 Answer these character questions for each antagonist, protagonist, major characters, and power players (think President Snow from Hunger Games): 

• What is their name, age, description, quirks?

• What do they like? 

• What do they hate?

• What are their goals? What do they want more than anything else in the world? What happens if they don't reach them?

• What’s stopping them from getting what they want is…

• What is the emotional goal of the character? (how do you want the character to grow, develop, deterioate, etc.)

DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR POWERFUL PROBLEM OR FOE

Every story needs opposition. Whether that is a volcano that might erupt and wipe out a village or an insane villain trying to overthrow the government, opposition cannot be forgotten. If it is a person, make sure you are really clear about his or her motivations, urges, and flaws. It is really understand to understand the ‘why’ of what the villain is doing and letting the reader in on this, bit by bit, can draw your reader in and invest them in the story. 

Prep-work: World building

World building is a very important part of writing in this genre. Even if your characters are going to be on earth during real life, the fantasy genre requires infers that there will be some "rule changes". World building means slowly unfolding those rules so that the reader is on the same page with you.

Save yourself a lot of editing by deciding most of this before you start writing.

CONSIDER THESE THINGS:

• Decide first, are you creating an entirely new world or is your novel set in modern-day earth? 

• Is there a government in place? What is this look like? (Go into more detail if this is going to be an important part of your story, otherwise the basic understanding of what this government looks like will suffice. 

• Are there laws or anarchy? Who upholds the laws? What kinds of punishments are expected for rule breakers? 

• What biases, religions, or social taboos are there? 

• What do people need? What do people wear? How do they buy things? Think about a typical day in the life for people in this world.

• In your created world, consider adding regional differences- culture, skin tone, religion, food, accents, etc., based on where the location is. 

Create a Map 

for the settings that are especially important for your story and where the reader will visit often. You'd be amazed how difficult it is to remember where someone's room is in the house compared to other important characters. Little details like that can mess with the accuracy of what you're trying to create if you mix them. Most of my maps involve a scrap of paper and a few minutes of scribbling. Sometimes, I’ll add a few notes on the side if there is something important to remember. 

Prep-work: Define the Magical System 

⁃ If your book has magic, what are the ‘rules’ of magic? Does everyone have magic? For those who do, do they only have one specific type of magic? How does someone get stronger magically? Can they lose their powers? How?

⁃ What limits their powers? (Think: Kryponite for Superman)

⁃ Is the magic based on nature or mimic nature in some way? (Think: The Last Airbender tv show, Sookie Stackhouse Vampire Novels, The Line Trilogy)

⁃ Is there a scientific source (Think: X-men, Spiderman, Fantastic 4)

⁃ How do you learn magic? (Does great-grandmother teaches you or do you experiment on your own? Do you go to school?)

LIMIT THE POWERS

Remember to limit the powers in some way, especially with your protagonist. You can get away with the illusion of your protagonist having overwhelming power (Think of the world destroyer in Star Wars) if you have one small flaw, but rarely can you do that with your protagonist. If your protagonist has it too easy, then the story threatens to be boring. But, like for example, in order, magic, in general, is limited by the need to use a wand, and memorize spells, and practice them, in order to be better, the story is much more believable and people can empathize with the characters that the reading, especially if you watch them grow and get better over time. 

Be Serious About Your Writing Habit

The muse rarely writes novels, but discipline will every time.

Small habits, done daily, can accomplish big things. Set regular time aside to write. I found, what works best for me, is a system. Right now, I have a day job so I build my writing time into my work schedule. 

6:15a-7:30a I arrive early to work. I go to my predesignated spot and write (or edit)

until work starts

7:30a-12p Work at my day job- I have the luxury of eating at my desk, so I eat my lunch while working to free up my actual lunch time for writing

12p -12:55p Writing (or editing) time

12:55p-1p Plan what I will write next

1p-4:30 p Work time

Bam, two hours of writing done just by going to work. The habit is now automatic. My brain automatically snaps into writing mode when I go to my writing spot, throw on some headphones, and turn on my favorite music playlist. 

It’s my responsibility. 

Re-framing what I am doing helps me stick to my plan. Instead of looking at it like work (as it often seems like) or play (it can sometimes be really fun), I look at it like a duty. I imagine parents feel like parenting is a duty. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is work, but always they are expected to show up because they have a duty, a responsibility, to do so. I feel  my stories are important and the world needs them. 

Think about it, what if J.K. Rowling, or whoever your favorite author,  decided not to show up and write. Authors can change the world and if you want to be one of those authors, you have to show up and do the work. You owe it to your seedling story to help it grow into something real. 

Writing a book isn't easy, but it's very doable. There's a lot of great guides on how to write, but it really comes down to "butt in chair time.” Ask yourself, how badly do you want this? If, in a year from now, you are no closer to your goal of writing a book, how would you feel? Drop the excuses and start today. Take this opportunity to move forward with your dreams! You can do it! The world needs to read your story!

If you want more details on developing your outline and doing your pre-work, be sure to check out 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love  by Rachel Aaron. I can’t recommend it enough!

Try any of these methods? Comment below and let me know how it went. 

Angelina Allsop is an Amazon Best Selling Author who lives with her husband, Bryce, and their very old and very fat bulldog, Roree, in rural Arizona. She enjoys being outside on rainy days, reading, and of course, writing about all the adventures that happen in her head. 

Her debut novel, The Dead Orphanage, now called The Unliving Chronicles, is an award-nominated Otherworld book that hit the top-selling charts in its first month. If you love fantasy adventure, mythical fantasy and young adult book then you will LOVE this coming of age adventure book! Look for the rest of the haunting series coming soon!

Fourteen-year-old Peter Green can’t remember how he died.

All he has are his pajamas, a silk tie, and a one-way bus ticket to Mrs. Battisworth’s Academy and Haven for Unliving Boys and Girls, a strange and spooky school for dead orphans like himself. But that’s all he needs: the Unliving Academy has everything, from vampires in the hallways, to monsters in the cafeteria, to ghosts in the basement.

And that’s just the teachers; the students are far stranger.

As Pete learns to fit in with his new supernatural schoolmates, he starts to discover his own uniquely undead abilities, and even begins enjoying his life after death…but he just can’t shake the feeling that he’s forgotten something (or somebody!) important.

Somebody he left behind in the land of the living.

Somebody he loved very much.

Somebody who’s in terrible danger. 

Peter Green and the Unliving Academy is the captivating first installment of Angelina Allsop’s Unliving series of young adult fantasy novels. If you like reading about fun-filled adventures, fully realized new worlds, and the most unlikely of heroes, you’re sure to love Allsop’s spirited coming-of-age tale.

aaallsop.com

GUEST POST: "Why I Don’t Write Middle Grade" by B.A. Williamson

I love middle grade books. I have since before there was a difference between YA and MG, back when I picked up The Giver, devoured it in one weekend, and simply called it a book. But whenever anyone asks me why I write middle grade, I have a very simple answer:

I don’t.

Picture this: You’ve made it, you’re a published author, congratulations. You’re at your local Barnes and Noble, standing in front of a table covered with copies of your book (because, of course, you should never be behind the table.) Thirty identical covers gleam at you, creating a swath of your own personal color palette. You have a stack of bookmarks in hand, ready to strike up a conversation with anyone who walks in that door.

And here comes an anyone: an adult, with no child in tow. You make your pitch, they seem interested, but they ask you that dreaded question: “What age is this for?”

Of course, the real question is, “Guess the age of the kid I’m thinking of.” Guess correctly, and you’ve just made a sale. Guess wrong, and off they go to look at coffee table books about Sinatra.

I have some flippant answers I like to use: “Well, how old are you?”, or “From kids age 1 to 92.” (Not really--Gwendolyn Gray is not for toddlers.)

But usually I say something like this: “It’s kind of a book for everyone. I don’t write kids stories—I just write good stories, and they’ve got kids in them. I know that 12-year old’s like it a lot, but I’ve found teenagers who love it, and third graders, and plenty of adults. It’s for anyone who likes good stories about kids having adventures with monsters and airship pirates and super-boring schools.”

See, I never sat down to write a middle-grade novel. I just wanted to write a Brent novel. (That puts the B in B.A.) And to anyone who knows me, this is an absolute Brent novel, from ADHD children whose imaginations come to life, to a cheeky classical literary tone, to skydiving ninja-pirates who fight clockwork robots. I stopped just short of adding a TARDIS and a luck dragon.

I wrote a story about everything I love, and I love books, and I was a kid who loved books, and I wanted to write about a kid who loved books because that was me and that’s what I know and that’s what I wanted to put out into the world.

I didn’t write a story for twelve-year-old’s. I wrote a story about twelve-year-old’s, and they seem to really like it. And so do people who were twelve once, or are going to be twelve someday. But it’s also a story about friendship, loss, love, magic, and most importantly, imagination.

At the risk of being controversial, I think sometimes we coddle our readers. We dumb it down too much. There’s plenty in my story that only my older readers are picking up on, but I wanted to write a book that everyone could read, so there’s no sex, there’s no swearing, the violence is kept pretty mild, and there’s only a tiny bit of grog-swilling.

Don’t pigeon hole yourself by the constraints of a label. The best middle-grade books out there are the ones that break out of that box—when was the last time you heard Harry Potter or Percy Jackson referred to as “middle grade?” They are, but in a way that transcends the label, because they’re just good stories.

So by now it sounds like I’m hating on middle grade, on a site about middle grade, and let me say that is absolutely not the case. I’m saying that middle grade is at its best when authors find the heart of the story they want to tell, and stick to it. When they take their reader seriously, and give them serious things to think about.

I really wanted The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray to feel important. I wanted it to matter. I wanted it to have weight. And one way to do that was to make sure that there were realistic consequences for the character’s actions.

Travelling to other worlds? That would spin your head! Losing your home? That’s not the sort of thing you get over after one or two chapters. And if someone dies, right in front of you, that’s a significant trauma for a twelve-year-old to witness, and it would stick with them, probably for the rest of their life. Keeping those things in mind makes your characters feel like real people. It makes your imaginary story about shadow monsters and steampunk cities feel like real worlds, where the stakes are real and the lives are real and the consequences are real.

Another reason to keep the MG label on the outside, rather than the inside? The kids. Kids know when they’re being pandered to. And writing middle-grade stories accurately, with really authentic middle-grade characters can be… cringe inducing. I’ve had some drafts where Gwendolyn did things that didn’t make sense, or came across as self-centered and petty and awkward, and I thought, yes, well, have you ever been in a middle-school cafeteria? It’s full of awkward, cringe-inducing self-involved kids! Instead of ultra-realism, show the kind of preteens that kids wish they were, but with the kind of struggles they already have.

That’s when you can show the magic of this particular age group. They’re just starting to realize that there’s a whole world around them, full of other people with their own thoughts and feelings. They learn that the things they do matter. There’s a whole new version of themselves that they haven’t met yet, and they’re just learning how to shape themselves into that person.

There’s an aspect of romance in my book. This has been an incredibly polarizing element among reviewers. I’m told that kids this age shouldn’t be acting like that, or that it isn’t middle-grade appropriate. But the middle schoolers I work with are just certainly noticing each other, and it is constantly on their mind. When I read the book to my students, and ask them whether I should cut that out, the answer is always a resounding No, you have to keep it! I tried to capture all the adorable awkward puppy-love of that first crush age, and the love of these two characters is what gets my students crying at the end. The adults who view this through the lens of their kids think, gross, my kid isn’t ready for that sort of thing. But the ones who remember being a kid themselves find that it resonates with the hormonal mess we all were at that age.

So start with a great story. Write some great characters. If those characters are interesting, and go on marvelous adventures, kids will want to read it. And if those characters are interesting, and go on marvelous adventures, and just happen to be kids, everyone else will read it too. And when it’s all said and done, you can put that middle grade label on the cover and know that you’ve written an amazing story that shows why middle grade is one of the genres that matters most. These are the books that help shape who these kids are, and who they’ll grow up to be. All you have to do is flip through the pages of Gwendolyn Gray to see all the things I’ve loved before, all my formative influences, and most of them came from middle-school. If you don’t talk down to your audience, don’t patronize them, but give them a story with real characters that strike the heart, with real stakes and real messages, then you’ll have an outstanding book that people will love, and yes, that will include lots of middle schoolers.

B. A. Williamson is the overly caffeinated writer of The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray. When not doing battle with the demons in the typewriter, he can be found wandering Indianapolis with his family, singing in a tuxedo, or taming middle-schoolers. He is a recipient of the Eli Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship. Please direct all complaints and your darkest secrets to @BAWrites on social media, or visit gwendolyngray.com

THE MARVELOUS ADVENTURES OF GWENDOLYN GRAY

Part fantasy, part dystopian, part steampunk, and all imagination, The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray follows dreamer Gwendolyn as she evades thought police, enters a whimsical world, befriends explorers and pirates, and fights the evil threatening to erase everything she loves.

Gwendolyn Gray faces an overwhelming battle every day: keeping her imagination under control. It’s a struggle for a dreamer like Gwendolyn, in a city of identical gray skyscrapers, clouds that never clear, and grown-ups who never understand.

But when her daydreams come alive and run amok in The City, the struggle to control them becomes as real as the furry creatures infesting her bedroom. Worse yet, she’s drawn the attention of the Faceless Gentlemen, who want to preserve order in The City by erasing Gwendolyn and her troublesome creations.

With the help of two explorers from another world, Gwendolyn escapes and finds herself in a land of clockwork inventions and colorful creations. Now Gwendolyn must harness her powers and, with a gang of airship pirates, stop the Faceless Gentlemen from destroying the new world she loves and the home that never wanted her—before every world becomes gray and dull.

gwendolyngray.com