All Things Middle Grade

CheG said:

Hey-o kidlit gang!!

Anyone else love books about contests? Have any recommendations?

My brain seems to default to "let's make it a competition!" and I'm not sure if it's because I watch too much reality TV (and I don't even watch that much...) or because I watch lots of anime and like half of those are competition based...

How valid is this as a plot device and at what point does it become repetitive?

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I think contest books can be really fun. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library are two that spring to mind.

I like competitions because they also have built in conflict. I think I need to find something simple to write. I have been so bummed with my last failed MG manuscript simple might be the best. And competitions have everything I need to make a nice straight forward story.

I'm sorry you're feeling bummed right now, Che. I think writing something that just sounds fun is a great idea. I'm doing that myself with a lower MG girls' soccer book. Good luck!

CheG, I'm in the same boat! I've been querying a MG with a hostage situation/presumed terrorists and finding agents really do not like that angle in books for kids. Maybe YA, but that changes everything.

My WIP is humorous contemporary. Loving the experience of writing something lighter and more straightforward.

Hey everybody,
been digging around this place for awhile and figured I'd finally make my first post here. Been writing for a long time now but only recently attempted my first go at publishing traditionally. It's such a bizarre process to me--makes me wish I'd realized what went into trying to get a book published before I spent all the time writing it. But it's still been an awesome learning process.
I haven't dug through too much of this thread because I have the impression agents (like myself) can and do often change their opinions about what's interesting and marketable--so I've stuck to the more recent posts. But I do have a question to toss out there...

Does anyone have any great agent feedback stories (whether good or bad) they'd like to share?
I queried Bill Contardi of Brandt & Hochman awhile back and received a very quick rejection... which was actually one of the reasons I queried him. I knew rejection was coming and I wanted to get that first rejection and get used to the idea I heard Mr. Contardi was very swift to reply and my experience was no different. Contardi was polite and professional about his rejection and helped me get used to the concept while wishing me the best of luck.

Anyway... just thought I'd toss the question out there. Greetings.

First of all, welcome!!

Second of all, don't worry about having written the book first. For a new writer it is almost impossible to sell a work of fiction on a proposal. Heck for an already published writer it can be almost impossible to sell a work of fiction on a proposal (unless you are a huge blockbuster success). Coming up with an idea, writing the first couple chapters, that's the easy bit. Proving you can write an entire book all the way to the end? THAT's what agents are interested in seeing if you can do. So you wouldn't have gotten very far without a full manuscript.

Third of all: it's important to be aware of what is trending for sure, but ultimately you need to just write what you want to write. Trends are not worth chasing. They change often, what's being published now was acquired 18 months ago, and what's being acquired now might not be three months from now when you go on submission. The only thing we as authors can control is what we write, and what we write ought to be what we're passionate about.

Fourth: After all that, I can't help with your actual question, lol. It's been a while since I subbed to agents. I will say that most of them are professional and kind and are not some evil gatekeepers as some new authors see them as. Assume unless there is anything specific in the rejection that it's a form rejection so don't take it personally. Be grateful for the personalised rejections because that means they thought you were worth their time. And know that rejections are all part of the game. Consider them your initiation into the club! Welcome!!

Welcome to the forum and the kidlit gang, CottonChops.

It's great to meet you CottonChops!

I researched agents and signed with mine after an email query. I will say he emailed me back about 4 minutes after I sent the query and asked for the ms. I thought my message had bounced back for a moment. I guess we were in sync that day!

Cottonchops- ALL agents wish you luck. It's part of the rejection form letter. It varies a tiny bit from agent to agent but that's all.

Welcome, CottonChops!

Thanks everybody. I figured "courtesy" was usually part of the deal. I was more interested in everyone else's tales if they had any though. Especially if anyone had some interesting feedback with helpful info on it.

What exactly are you looking for by way of "helpful info"? I tried my best with my response to you, was that what you were looking for or something else? Honestly at the querying stage it's all pretty standard, most experiences are similar: lots of rejection, form responses, the occasional personalised rejection, and some requests for fulls.

It might help if you asked specific questions of us .

I have very little in the way of anything hopeful to contribute to querying anecdotes.

Hello,

I finally registered after reading through the Middle Grade posts for a while now. My background is in business writing and online content but children's fiction is my true love. About a year ago I wrote a junior fiction (lower middle grade) book for my daughter as a Xmas gift because I couldn't find any published books with a main character that shared her name. I enjoyed the process so much that I decided to edit it and send it to some publishers. I received really good feedback and got to the final selection stage with one publisher but in the end they decided that it wasn't strong enough for their list. The publisher encouraged me to try something else and send it in to her, so I have been working on a new idea for about 3 months now.

My new WIP is a longer book (about 50,000) for older readers, my main characters are 11 and 12. I'm at 43,000 words now and am suddenly having a crisis of confidence!

The book now is different to the book I started with in chapter one and now I'm worried that I have a confused story. It was originally quite whimsical but towards the last 1/2 to 1/4 of the book there are some more complex issues that come into play and now it's taken a more serious tone.

I have a couple of questions for you that may help me -

How many characters is too many? I know in Harry Potter for example there are quite a few when you include the teachers, but I'm worried I have too many minor stories going on that could distract the reader.

I have my main character (11yr old girl), her best friend (12 yr old boy), main character's parents, an elderly man who is central to the story, a villain character, and a woman who lives in the town who is tied to the mother with a minor story line.

My other question relates to structure - how closely do you follow the "rules" about where to put plot points etc.? For this book I've tried to loosely follow a plot structure plan but I find it really restricts my creativity and stops the flow of my writing.

I think I just need to finish it and then go back and do a serious edit before my beta readers look at it, and maybe look at how the structure fits then.

BecMountainBlue said:

The book now is different to the book I started with in chapter one and now I'm worried that I have a confused story. It was originally quite whimsical but towards the last 1/2 to 1/4 of the book there are some more complex issues that come into play and now it's taken a more serious tone.

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A lot of people, especially early on in learning the craft, sort of drift in and out of different styles and voices while they're trying to find their own. It's normal. And a lot of times, we do end up with a different book than what we thought we started with. So that's all normal. What you do, then, is revise the book and rewrite the parts that don't match so that you have a consistent style and voice throughout. It's okay for a book to start light and get heavier, but if the first half has a lot of whimsy and humor, you do want to make sure you've carried some of that through to the end. If you think things have gotten confused, try creating an outline from your draft. Maybe it will help you see what belongs or doesn't or where a story thread has gone wonky.

How many characters is too many? I know in Harry Potter for example there are quite a few when you include the teachers, but I'm worried I have too many minor stories going on that could distract the reader.

I have my main character (11yr old girl), her best friend (12 yr old boy), main character's parents, an elderly man who is central to the story, a villain character, and a woman who lives in the town who is tied to the mother with a minor story line.

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Each story is going to be different, and no one can really tell you (short of having like 200 characters or something) if you have too many without reading the story. I think this is a case where you need to find some beta readers and let them see if they're confused or distracted by too many side plots. But from what you've indicated here, this does not seem like too many characters for an upper MG story.

My other question relates to structure - how closely do you follow the "rules" about where to put plot points etc.? For this book I've tried to loosely follow a plot structure plan but I find it really restricts my creativity and stops the flow of my writing.

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Well, there are a lot of different rule sets and methods for structure that you could try. I've enjoyed books that follow a strict structure, books that seem loosely based on a structure, and books that seem to just meander around all over. It just depends on the story and the way it's written.

For my part, I was meandering and needed to start applying some structure. What I was ending up with was just scene after only vaguely related scene and it wasn't going anywhere. So I started trying to follow the structure laid out in Save the Cat!. At first, I felt really confined. It was nice to be putting things into more of an actual story format, but I also felt like I had to remove a lot of my subplots and important events because they didn't fit the structure as I saw it. But recently, I've been looking at examples where people have taken popular stories and shown where the structure is (in Save the Cat!, it's called a Beat Sheet). Those examples showed me that within each "beat" (your catalyst, your turning point, etc), there's actually a lot more happening than I thought there could be, like all the named parts of the story are really just containers around smaller stories that serve larger purposes in the overall plot. So I'm looking at putting some of my other plots back in, now. So maybe you could look at some examples of popular works plotted out or experiment with what you can do within the structure you're using. Some people just use structure as a guideline.

But yeah, it does sound like a lot of your questions could only be answered (beyond just theoretically) by a good beta. These things can't really be taken in isolation.

Good luck though. I understand your frustration.

Is it me or are "talking animals" making a comeback? I stumbled across The Mismantle Chronicles at the library the other day and Tor has a "grimdark Redwall" novella thingie coming out. But why are they all in Medieval times?

Hello all!

My interest is YA, but I have a MG idea so found my way into this thread. Trying to read some of the MG books I've accrued on my bookshelf to get in the zone. It'll probably be my NaNo project.

Welcome to the MG thread Leema! Nice to meet you

Awesome podcast from Australian Writers Centre with an interview with Andy Griffiths:

http://www.writerscentre.com.au/ep-67/

CheG said:

Is it me or are "talking animals" making a comeback? I stumbled across The Mismantle Chronicles at the library the other day and Tor has a "grimdark Redwall" novella thingie coming out. But why are they all in Medieval times?

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I've noticed that too - not that I'm complaining, particularly, as the Redwall series was a huge staple of my teenage reading life, couldn't get enough. Not so sure we need a "grimdark" variation, though... Redwall was that perfect balance of beauty and grim, the contrast complimenting each. To focus on the darker side purely for "gritty" reasons seems unnecessary, in my humble opinion. I might still give it a try, though.

As for why they're all medieval ... I think the setting lends itself perfectly to an anthro novel; again, a perfect balance of fantasy that's also grounded enough in historical events and life to lend that extra bit of humanity to the animal characters. They become more believable as people because of that balance, going through struggles humans of the time also experienced rather than overly-fantastical scenarios few would be able to relate to.

But hey! If you're suggesting we should have someone write the next "Bucky O'Hare", then I say go for it!

Dave

DavidBrett- I'm a big fan of anything with talking mice! So I'm hoping to come up with a plot for tiny wizard mice I started drawing last year. I thought they would be almost unsellable so I never put much effort into them. But now I'm thinking there might be room for yet MORE mice! I'm glad to see a bit of rekindled interest in talking animals!

Seems as good a time as any to jump into this thread and say hello! I have a mouse companion to my MC in the manuscript I've just finished/am editing/okay so it's not quite finished but it has an end dagnammit! He doesn't speak though... I thought about it, but he can communicate enough without it. Anyway, this is my first 'finished' novel-length anything and I am so relieved to find this place/thread/sub-forum. I was starting to wonder if I was the only person writing for middle grade and then all of a sudden here you all are! I can't even recall how I found my way here, but it's so nice to read through all the asked and answered questions.

Cariad said:

Seems as good a time as any to jump into this thread and say hello! I have a mouse companion to my MC in the manuscript I've just finished/am editing/okay so it's not quite finished but it has an end dagnammit! He doesn't speak though... I thought about it, but he can communicate enough without it. Anyway, this is my first 'finished' novel-length anything and I am so relieved to find this place/thread/sub-forum. I was starting to wonder if I was the only person writing for middle grade and then all of a sudden here you all are! I can't even recall how I found my way here, but it's so nice to read through all the asked and answered questions.

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Hi Cariad - It's great to meet you and welcome to the kidlit threads!

Thanks!

Oof, you know the more I read through this thread, the more I doubt my work... is it MG? Is the vocabulary right? Will they actually want to read it? Is it boring?! Ad infinitum. Think I'm just having one of those days most of us have where the bottom falls out of my motivation and then everything becomes questionable.

Okay... reasonable question: what's a ball park acceptable chapter length? Google has such varied answers. My MS is c.60000 words and I need to put the chapters in retrospectively. Not ideal, I know, but a starting idea would help me.