"Old" People Writing for Teens V

Oh yeah, M.S. Wiggins, and congrats on the requests. I always forget to say that! Requests are beautiful blossoms of affirmation and possibility!

Not sure how I like my 3rd person re-write so far. I sound pretentious. But it might work as pretentious. I just don't know. Curse my never ending self-doubt and worry! But I am a writer . . .

Thanks for the feedback, Stiger, Becca, and Tri. It's pretty much as I expected, both varied and generally positive. Tri, your agent's response must have been pretty awesome!

JTR, I'm in the exact same position. I'm rewriting the first chapters in 3rd and testing an additional POV, all while trying not to sound pretentious. The tone I want this novel to have seems like it would come through better in 3rd, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. I wrote several chapters in 3rd originally, but then rewrote them in 1st. Now I'm rewriting them in 3rd again. It's good to explore this, right? I think so. I also think I write 3rd better if I first write the scene in 1st. I get more voice that way. The draft needed fleshing out, and these POV trials are helping me find different details to include. Just trying not to get impatient with the process or tired of the story.

Okay, I've written like 6 pages today, so I guess that's good. Also, I'm beginning to realize that my MC has social anxiety issues.

Oh, man, I LOVE 3rd person. But maybe I am pretentious as a person?

Marianne Kirby said:

Oh, man, I LOVE 3rd person. But maybe I am pretentious as a person?

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I love the 3rd person! Current MS is in the 1st, because the MC just seemed to have one of those voices, and now I'm totally wondering if I should have gone with a super close 3rd anyway. I have no confidence in myself in the 1st.

In other news, I hit my camp goal! I am torn between going through the crazy excitement of the race to the novel's climax, or working on revisions for the last MS, in case anyone wants it in the Beta Project.

Sage said:

I did notice that the one time I did 3rd person for YA, I was told that it didn't sound YA. I've never had that problem with my 1st person POVs.

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That's interesting! The YA I just sold is 3rd person. As is the YA project I'm working on now.

CoffeeBeans said:

I love the 3rd person! Current MS is in the 1st, because the MC just seemed to have one of those voices, and now I'm totally wondering if I should have gone with a super close 3rd anyway. I have no confidence in myself in the 1st.

In other news, I hit my camp goal! I am torn between going through the crazy excitement of the race to the novel's climax, or working on revisions for the last MS, in case anyone wants it in the Beta Project.

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I think POV just takes practice.

And yay for reaching your goal! Do you think you'd lose momentum if you switched manuscripts?

I liked writing 1st for my last novel, but it just needed to be in 1st. I loved it so much that I wrote my current WIP in 1st too, but I think the switching POV's so much is too confusing in 1st. I read Throne of Glass and am rereading The Raven Boys, because both use a close third with switching POV's and i think it works much better. But I also want to use more descriptive language and give it just a little flavor of older writing, like the original Last of the Mohicans had. Not sure I'm pulling it off, but hey, all I can do is try.

Sage said:

I've noticed a lot more now that secondary-world fantasy has made a comeback in YA.

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Why do you think that is?

I tend to think it's easier to make the first person POV sound modern, fresh in a way that engages YA readers, but I like third person because I can pull back a little with it sometimes, too.

M.S. Wiggins said:

I just got my third request for the full manuscript today. With the first two, I sent the manuscript minus the frills (the occasional art/graphic image). I have both versions—word doc. with and without. I'm wondering if I'm supposed to be sending the one with the images (the artsy-fartsy-fluffy-stuff I had envisioned being part of the manuscript), or keep sending the no-frills document.

Any advice?

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Congrats! I would send the one without the images. If they show more interest, then you could always present the one with images.

Are these images you've done yourself?

I may be reading more into this than there is, but one of the agents who said she really liked my writing and my novel was really hard for her to pass on, just started following my blog. Serious pressure!

Nailed it! Okay, didn't nail it, but I did manage to write a 150 word pitch I don't totally hate. So that's good.

I had a hard time with my Beta Project blurb. This book somehow works way better in a quick elevator blurb than anything with more than one sentence -- I guess because the plot is kind of twisty. Anything more than just the basic, beginning premise is going into major spoiler territory.

Tried to work on the beta blurb last night, and it's a catastrophic failure. It sounds like I wrote the dullest and most amateurish novel ever. Well, it's not yet finished, so...
Tried to work on the 750 first words instead, and God, I'm not ready for that nitpick yet! But at least I carved it down to 750 coherent words - Problem is, the opening doesn't give the reader any clue what the book is about.
Oh well... better trudge on tonight and see if I can make this beta project participation happen or not at all. That blurb is killing me.

Working on your blurb in secret is hard?

I've been working on my 250-word query for a week and combating the humiliation that comes with it. It's not the squirrel's words. They've been extremely nice and helpful. It's the I'm-never-gonna-make-it feeling and the frustration. But the brighter side is the process has nailed the core conflict and is going to be useful for me to cut down my word count from 90K+ to 75K-.

I hate writing. Eating ice cream is so much better. *Gets depressed again looking into fridge and finds no ice cream.*

I'm totally going to be that person - I didn't know we were supposed to stress about the blurbs for the Beta Project.

I'm a snowflake-plotter - I start writing with a summary. When I offered to beta last year, I based my choosing way more on "does this sound like something I'd read" in a genre/content way, not "does this hook me like I'm a hot shot agent?"

(pretty much - I'm just saying don't worry so much! we're all nice folks who want to read things, right?)

Bing Z said:

I hate writing. Eating ice cream is so much better. *Gets depressed again looking into fridge and finds no ice cream.*

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*sends e-ice cream*

Queries suck. They are a tough slog, and have an amazing ability to make your whole MS (and writing aspirations) seem like a terrible idea. Upside, it shows you every wrinkle in your novel...

Hang in there! It's getting better!

I’m butting in because this seems to be where everyone is talking about the Beta Project. (New to this thread only, not to AW, so…Hi!)


I’m glad you decided to keep the blurb to 150, Sage – makes it easier to not treat it as a query. It’s a different beast, I think. In QLH there’s often a push to reveal twists if that’s what’s needed to hook, but when I’m looking for a beta reader, it’s not just about hooking. I want to know if the twists work for a reader who isn’t primed to anticipate them. My current WIP isn’t particularly twisty, but even the briefest blurb has to be upfront about something that’s slowly revealed over the first few chapters. For the rest, I’m just trying to give a (mostly coherent) sense of what the story will be like, so it’s pretty vague. People can critique it if they want, but I’ll just save that up for a potential query later on. Not gonna stress about it now.


(Also, this? "I'm in: Vermont...endlessly" -- pretty much how I felt all through high school, so I sympathize.)

Bing Z said:

Working on your blurb in secret is hard?

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CoffeeBeans said:

I'm totally going to be that person - I didn't know we were supposed to stress about the blurbs for the Beta Project.

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Haha - I wasn't that stressed out, really, because as Bing says - it's not even remotely a query (*shudders*). Still, I got hung up on a detail and just couldn't summarize the novel coherently at all. Instead started questioning the whole story, which is not a good idea... Anyway, it's actually a very simple story (hence the dullness angst) that should be easy-peasy to write far less than 150 words about.

I think I'll get this done tonight after giving myself a 20-minute deadline to get the words right - and then just click send.

Here's some more ice cream for you, Bing, and anyone else needing it to soothe serious query nerves.