Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Part I: Getting Ready to Write Young Adult Fiction
Part II: Writing Riveting Young Adult Fiction
Part III: Editing, Revising, and Formatting Your Manuscript
Part IV: Getting Published
Part V: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Ready to Write Young Adult Fiction
Chapter 1: The Lowdown on YA Fiction
Introducing YA and Its Readers
Knowing what makes a YA a YA
Understanding why YA fiction is for kids
Looking at why it’s not just for kids
Maneuvering through the Challenges
Reaching reluctant readers
Pacifying gatekeepers
Enjoying the Perks of Writing for Young Adults
Getting new waves of readers: Long live the renewable audience!
Gaining a following: The young and the quenchless
Breaking the rules
Chapter 2: Targeting Teen Readers
Identifying Your Teen or Tween Audience
Choosing your age range
Targeting gender
Exercise: Name your category
Knowing Your Genre
Exploring genres of YA fiction
Writing cross-genre novels
Thinking through the Theme
Looking at universal teen themes
Making timeless themes relevant today
Exercise: Choose your theme
Making or Chasing Trends
Chapter 3: Managing Your Muse
Setting Yourself Up to Write
Carving out your writing space
Protecting your writing time
Setting Your Muse Loose
Capturing ideas
Getting the words to flow
Bulldozing your way through writer’s block
Outlining the Right Way (for You)
Outlining the whole story
Planning portions
Tossing out the outline
Doing Research, YA-Style
Taking notes and keeping records
Following general research guidelines
Finding reliable online resources
Doing field research to make the teen realm yours
Putting the brakes on research
Revealing what you know
Finding Your People: The YA Community
Joining a professional organization: What SCBWI should mean to you
Attending writers’ conferences
Keeping up with the biz: YA-specific journals
Checking out the online community
Joining a critique group
Part II: Writing Riveting Young Adult Fiction
Chapter 4: Writing the Almighty Hook
Understanding the Importance of a Hook
Calling your shot for others
Calling your shot for yourself
Writing a Great Hook in Four Easy Steps
Step 1: Introduce your character
Step 2: State your theme
Step 3: Assert your core plot conflict or goal
Step 4: Add context
Exercise: Write your hook
Using Your Hook to Shape Your Story
Chapter 5: Creating Teen-Friendly Characters
Casting Characters Teens Care About
Calling all heroes
Selecting a jury of peers
Offing the old people
Bringing Your Characters to Life
Revealing character through action
Revealing character through dialogue
Getting physical
The beauty of flaws: Creating a not-so-perfect character
Backstory: Knowing the secret past
Exercise: Create a full character profile
Putting Your Characters to Work
Making the introductions
Using character arc to drive your plot
Granting independence to teen characters
Writing Believable Baddies
Giving the villains goals and dreams
Seeing the good in the bad
Making an example of an antagonist
Exercise: Write a character profile for your antagonist
Chapter 6: Building the Perfect Plot
Choosing the Approach to Your Plot
Acting on events: Plot-driven stories
Focusing on feelings: Character-driven stories
Seven Steps to the Perfect Plot
Step 1: Engage your ESP
Step 2: Compute the problem
Step 3: Flip the switch
Step 4: Dog pile on the protagonist
Step 5: Epiphany!
Step 6: Final push
Step 7: Triumph
Exercise: Plot your trigger points
Tackling Pacing and Tension
Picking up the pace
Slowing the pace
Creating tension
Managing Your Subplots
Pulling Off Prologues, Flashbacks, and Epilogues
Prologues
Flashbacks
Epilogues
Chapter 7: Creating Teen-Driven Action
Grabbing Teens’ Attention
Opening with action
Tell ’em how it is: Giving key info
Making promises
Pushing Readers’ Buttons with Scenes and Chapters
Knowing a scene from a chapter
Mastering transitions
Leaving Teens Satisfied
Empowering your teen lead
Keeping it real
Keeping your promise
Delivering a twist
Chapter 8: Setting Is More than Somewhere to Be
How the Where and When Affect the Who, What, and Why
Place
Time
Social context
Setting Up Your Characters
Manipulating their minds
Putting words in their mouths
Kicking characters in the pants
Tying Your Plot to Your Place
Choosing the Best Setting for Your Teen Novel
Making the Setting Come Alive
Engaging the five senses
Sample scene: Two girls on a bus
Researching your setting
Weaving the Setting into Your Narrative
Sprinkling versus splashing
Stacking the sensory details
Keeping it young
Giving the setting a job
Freshening up common settings
Chapter 9: Crafting a Narrative Voice Teens Will Listen To . . . and Love
I’m Not Talking Dialogue Here: The True Meaning of Narrative Voice
Getting a feel for narrative voice
Seeing what goes into narrative voice
Pinning Down Your Narrator and Point of View
First-person POV
Second-person POV
Third-person limited POV
Third-person omniscient POV
The unreliable narrator
Exercise: Developing your narrative POV
Making Sense of Teen Sensibility
Self-awareness and the teen psyche
Embrace your inner drama queen
Word Choice: It Pays to Be Picky
Say what? Using appropriate words for your audience
Getting fresh with your phraseology
Exercise: Creating a word bank
Showing a little style
Syncing Your Delivery to Your Audience
Sizing up sentence structure and paragraphing
Putting punctuation in its place
Show It, Don’t Tell It
Chapter 10: Talking Like a Teen
Telling Your Story through Dialogue
Character and mood: Letting your teens talk about themselves
Delivering information: Loose lips reveal plot and backstory
Choosing the setting: Their “where” determines their words
Even Old People Can Sound Young
Rediscovering your immaturity
Relaxing the grammar
Ditching the fake teen accent
Cussing with caution
What the Best Dialogue Doesn’t Say
Censoring the babble
Dodging the question
Avoiding info dumps
Getting the Balance Right: Dialogue and Narrative
Taking breathers with beats
Making the action count
He said, she said: Doling out dialogue tags
Welcoming teens with white space
Weighing your balance of dialogue and narrative
Doing a Little Mind Reading: Direct Thoughts
Part III: Editing, Revising, and Formatting Your Manuscript
Chapter 11: Editing and Revising with Confidence
Self-Editing, Where Every Revision Begins
The read-through: Shifting your mindset from writing to editing
Self-editing checklist
Calling in the Posse: The Give and Take of Critiquing
Participating in a critique group
Hiring a freelance editor
Getting input from teens and tweens
Revising with Confidence
Starting big and finishing small
Taking chances with your changes
Knowing the final draft when you see it
Chapter 12: The Finishing Touches: Formatting and Finalizing
Paying Attention to Nitty-Gritty Details
Patrolling punctuation
Avoiding basic blunders with easily confused words
Running spell-check
Making Passes: Professionals Proofread (Twice)
Formatting the Standard YA Manuscript
Page setup and such: Tackling the technical stuff
Putting the right stuff on the first page
Protecting What’s Yours and Getting Permission
Copyrighting your manuscript
Understanding plagiarism, permission, and perfectly fair use
Asking for the okay
Crediting your sources
Part IV: Getting Published
Chapter 13: Strategizing and Packaging Your Submissions
Creating Your Submission Strategy
Compiling your submission list
Identifying the right editor for you
Deciding to work with an agent
Query Letters, Your Number-One Selling Tool
Why queries feel like the be all, end all . . . and are
Writing a successful query letter
Writing an Effective Synopsis
Drafting the synopsis
Tweaking the tone and tense
Formatting a synopsis
Packaging Your Submission
What to include
What not to include
The skinny on sample chapters
Keeping Your Fingers Crossed
Enduring the wait for a response
Receiving the long-awaited news
Turning “No” into “Yes!”
Using rejection to strengthen your story (and maybe resubmit it!)
Reading between the rejection-letter lines
Keeping your ego (and feelings) out of it
Chapter 14: Self-Publishing: Is It for You?
What’s So Different about Self-Publishing?
Eyeing the benefits
Realizing the drawbacks
Understanding Your Publishing Options
Traditional publishing
Print-on-demand (POD)
Digital publishing
Knowing the Players
Author services companies
Publisher services companies
Distributors
Wholesalers
Booksellers
Weighing Self-Publishing for Your YA Fiction
Common scenarios for self-publishers
Balancing your goals, your guts, and your wallet
Chapter 15: Mastering Marketing
Laying the Foundation
Working with a Marketing Team
Understanding the marketing department’s role
Calling in reinforcements: Freelance publicists
Marketing Yourself: I Write; Therefore, I Promote
Creating and maintaining a platform
Gathering your marketing materials
Garnering book reviews
Part V: The Part of Tens
Chapter 16: Ten Common Pitfalls in Writing YA Fiction
Dating a Book
Slinging Slang
S-E-X
Writing Cliché Characters and Situations
Preaching
Dumbing It Down
Writing for 18+
Putting Adults at the Helm
The Waving Author
Writing to Trends
Chapter 17: Ten Facts about Book Contracts
Does the Publisher Own the Copyright to My Book?
What Does “Buy All Rights” Mean?
What are Subsidiary Rights?
What’s the Deal with Electronic Rights?
What Does “Advance Against Royalties” Mean?
What’s the Difference between Royalties on “Net” and “Gross”?
Why Do My Royalties Go to My Agent?
What’s a Boilerplate?
Am I Protected from Libel Suits?
What’s an Option, and Why Would I Grant It?
Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Make the Most of a Conference
Set Reasonable Goals and Make a Plan to Achieve Them
Research the Faculty
Pay for One-on-One Critiques
Perfect Your Pitch
Prepare Your Manuscript
Create a Conference Notebook
Bring Bookmarks or Business Cards
Make Notes on the Business Cards You Receive
Save Conference Expense Receipts for Tax Records
Set Aside a Post-Conference Recovery Phase
Cheat Sheet
Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies®
by Deborah Halverson
Award-winning author and editor
Foreword by M. T. Anderson
National Book Award Winner
Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies®
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River St.
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
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