Tag Archives: J.K. Rowling

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Ditch the Prologue (For Now)

Writing

Writing (Photo credit: jjpacres)

In January, I wrote about my quandary over whether I should keep the prologue of my middle grade novel or scrap it. (Read that post here.) At the time, I decided it could stay. After all, the very literary agent and author who brought this issue to my attention read the opening of my book and said it was a strong start. I figured it would be silly to mess with a sure thing.

Content with my decision, I honed my query letter to a quirky perfection and sent it out to the masses. I received rejections, which I expected. What discouraged me, however, was the number of agents who did not respond at all. It’s normal to a point, even for agents to throw away SASE’s, but even the agents who invited writers to query again if there was no response didn’t respond to my reminders.

It’s hard to face the truth sometimes, especially when it meant that the book I’d poured myself into for ten-plus years didn’t even merit a “no, thank you.” And I did everything I was supposed to, following submission guidelines to a T, never sending attachments, the whole bit. The only thing that left was the story itself: something had to be wrong with it.

I mulled over this issue a lot but felt too discouraged to sit down and make any more changes. And I’ve been busy, too. But while I’ve gone about my life, the whole prologue or not issue has continued to percolate. You see, when I first wrote the book, there was no prologue, so I should be able to go back and just cut it out, right?   But the thing my readers liked when I added the prologue was that is answered some of their questions while still keeping the characters in the dark. My problem became: if I go back to starting with Chapter One, how will I keep my readers happy? I don’t want to bog the story down with too much background information up front. Prologues are great for plunging readers into the world of the story. On the flip side, they’re notorious for hiding very tedious first chapters.

I’ve considered my favorite books and the methods their authors employ. Michael Crichton’s books often have introductions as well as prologues, sometimes involving characters that don’t appear at all in the greater book. They do pack an early punch, but he had a knack for introducing facts in a way that don’t interrupt the story. Now, I am no Michael Crichton, so I should probably not write a prologue just because he did.

Stephenie Meyer, author of The Twilight Saga Collection, also uses prologues, and although I love her books, I can see how her prologues are literary devices, meant to pull readers in. To be honest, I read them but immediately forgot about them. They are poor teasers that really do not add to the story.

When put in that light, I suppose prologues are somewhat expendable. Or even if they’re not, people may read them as such. I don’t want to turn off an agent by having the word “Prologue” at the beginning of my novel.   Which is where Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1) comes in. Often, prologues pre-date the story with an important bit of backstory, so when this particular book opens ten years before the rest of the book, it could easily be labeled a prologue – yet author J.K. Rowling calls it “Chapter One” instead. This makes a difference, although it’s a subtle one: by calling it the first chapter, I think that Rowling makes a statement about how readers should approach the story. In essence, she says, “Listen up! The story is starting.”

Hmm… I wonder if this works on literary agents, too.

Of course, it doesn’t mean I’m going to simply change “Prologue” to “Chapter One” in my own book and have done with it. There are still some prologue-y things about it that need to change, which include making a smooth transition into the next chapter, along with spreading out any possible info dumping to make it more palatable. I have my work cut out for me. But after letting my novel sit so long, I think I am ready to make these difficult changes and send it out again. Maybe it will grab someone’s attention this time.

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The Work-at-Home Covenant

Working mom

Working mom (Photo credit: rankun76)

I’ve been working on an article about the balance between being home with kids and trying to work at the same time. I think this is something that needs to be addressed for frustrated moms out there (like yours truly) who sometimes feel helplessly at sea. But it seems like the articles already out there fall into one of two categories: advice from people who clearly don’t have kids (or are empty nesters and have forgotten) or are written by frustrated moms who just need a friendly reader to commiserate.

Yet there are successful work-at-home moms who make it look so easy. I’m sure it’s not rainbows and unicorns for them all the time, but they’ve turned their time at home and considerable talents into profitable careers. J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone while she was out of work and a single mom. Madeleine L’Engle stayed at home and wrote, even during a decade-long drought, in which she worried she would never be published again.

So while I’ve wrestled with my own situation (which is more often work-on-the-go than from home), I’ve tried to piece together what I do that works and what doesn’t, aspiring to be as successful as one of these greats. And it was actually my son who made me realize what the most important aspect is. It was a truth that’s glared at me for months, but sometimes it takes the brutal, innocent honesty of a child to bring it home.

Granted, it was a rough week for us. My husband was gone for five days, something that only happens a couple times a year, if that. I really admire single moms, military wives, and other women whose spouses travel frequently. We made it, but it wasn’t pretty. I cook most of our meals from scratch, and Thomas often takes the boys outside to play while I cook. Or he helps me in the kitchen. On my own, my kids ate a lot of chicken nuggets, I’m afraid, and I rarely got to eat before they were done. Chores went unfinished, and my temper got shorter and shorter: there just wasn’t time for me to do what I needed and sleep and play with my kids. And we’re talking bare minimum here. Forget reading a book or doing anything fun for me.

One night, after getting the little guy down, I sat at the table with my laptop, writing an article. And my elder son came to me and asked for something. I am ashamed to say I don’t remember what it was – I was barely paying attention then, immersed as I was in my work. What did catch my attention, though, was what he said next: “Mom, sometimes you’re not very fun. You don’t spend enough time with us.” I stand condemned.

No matter how many hours my husband works, he gives our kids one-on-one (or one-on-two) time when we’re together. The boys eat it up. They crave time with their daddy and miss him when he’s gone. The way things have been going, I wonder if the boys feel the same way about me. Something has to change. I don’t want to look back over my mothering years and realize I missed a number of small, meaningful moments while I wrote another article.

Last week was an exception, but it’s no excuse. I’ve had too many days recently in which I allowed myself to become a passenger in my own life – a passenger who barely even looked out at the scenery. And it’s my life. If I am imprisoned by my choice of lifestyle, I can only blame myself because I am the warden and hold the keys.

Because freelancing is so open – so “free” – it’s easy to get swept away in the current of work and never stop. And since there are no paid vacation days, no sick leave, and I don’t make a salary while I apply for jobs that may or may not come to fruition, I sometimes feel an almost self-denying need to write while everyone else takes time off. The idea that I could squeeze in full workdays every weekend was seductive. With no need to rush out the door for school and with most of my other chores finished during the week, I could just sit around and write all day – and let Thomas deal with the kids. First of all, that’s not fair to him, and it makes me unavailable to all three of them. Second, I ended every weekend looking back on everything I didn’t get done and feeling like I’d let everyone down. I’ve heard freelancers say to set a schedule, and the longer I’ve been at it, the more I agree. It doesn’t have to be nine to five (and in my case, it’s not going to be), but I do need some parameters. At some point, I need to say, This is my family’s time; writing can come later.

I have preached about this before – to others as well as myself. But for me, walking the talk is more than just saying, “I need to.” My almost immediate mental turn-around – the decision to not let my writing interfere with my family – was akin to other life choices I’ve made. These are things I’ve decided to do, no matter the cost, like nursing my babies for at least twelve months, getting up early to exercise on weekdays, and cutting wheat out of my diet. This was more than a simple decision but what I think of as a covenant with myself. I write because I love it, which means it should feed me, not starve me. The only way I can keep on writing is to protect myself and my family from freelancer’s burn out.

I implemented the plan this week. I wrote during the day, cutting myself off at supper time. I still checked e-mail, and if necessary, I wrote after the kids went to bed. But one of the reasons I’ve been so irritated lately is that, along with having little family time, I’ve had absolutely no me time, no time to recuperate. So I’ve made sure to only write sparingly at night, allowing myself a little time to read for the fun of it.

When I received three assignments with a tight deadline on Thursday, I met my first challenge. I either had to write them all on Friday, or I would break my promise and work through the weekend. So I stayed up a little later, finished the assignments, and when I woke up this morning, instead of heading straight to the laptop, I went into my younger son’s room and helped him build a train track.

This little bit of structure – of making myself accountable – has helped me be more productive than ever, believe it or not, and extra conscious of my family’s needs. Work-at-home moms have to decide what’s most important and tailor their lives to their particular covenants. That doesn’t mean there won’t be rough days or emergency writing assignments, but there will be something to answer to. All the other bits of practical advice I’m saving for my article are secondary to this. If we work-at-home moms can’t define the purpose of staying home – and I certainly hope it has something to do with spending more time with our families – why did we choose to be at home to begin with?

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You “Read It With Interest,” My Foot

Mail

Mail (Photo credit: Bogdan Suditu)

There’s no way to stop them from happening. Rejections. I’m talking about in the publishing industry. I have yet to hear about a published author who sent out queries and never received a rejection. The only way to achieve such a feat is to never send a query. Even the most successful authors went through many a rejection before they broke through.

So what’s the big deal? Someone like little ol’ me should expect rejection, right? Yes. And I do. I remember back in the days before e-mail queries were acceptable (and when every agent I queried preferred exclusive submissions), I snail mailed them one at a time, each with my SASE included, and then I waited. Never for acceptance, although I pretended to keep my hopes up. Usually, within a week or two, I would find my self-addressed envelope in the mail, creased from where I’d folded it into thirds. I would carry it inside, almost not wanting to open it. If anyone was around, I would wave it and say, “Here’s another rejection.” I was always right.

The types of rejections varied. Every once in a while, I received my query back with a coveted, hand-scrawled note, giving me some encouragement that at least someone had read it all the way through. Other times, the agency in question couldn’t be bothered to use a whole piece of paper for their form rejection. I do understand that it’s wasteful to use a whole sheet on a message that boils down to, “We’re not interested. Bother someone else, please,” but it just adds an extra little sting.

Worse were the rejections that never came. There are a few agencies that inform authors up front that SASEs are unnecessary. You can assume you’re rejected if you don’t hear anything within a specified period of time. If they want to see more, they’ll either call personally or go to the expense of using their own envelopes and stamps. You can guess the kind of “response” I received from these agencies.

One time, I received a form rejection that made it very clear that no one ever read my query. It so offended me that I got in a huff and wrote the most sarcastic query I could muster in response. The idea was to see if I could make an agent mad enough to respond, even if it was just to say, “How dare you!” Of course, I never sent it. The act of writing it calmed me, and I eventually decided that agent wasn’t worth my time, anyway.

But it made me wonder if querying was a futile effort. Why spend my time polishing a letter that no one was going to so much as glance at before rejecting? I understand that agents are extremely busy. Some even have periods when they do not accept submissions because they have to get other work done (like working with their already-established authors). Is there some kind of magic trick for those of us who don’t have an “in” in the industry?

Nowadays, more agencies are open to simultaneous submissions, and with so many accepting e-mail queries, as well, it keeps the process from stretching out for years. Already this month, I’ve sent ten queries, whereas I don’t think I ever sent ten in a year before, what with doing them all one at a time and then waiting for the mail. Still, it doesn’t make rejection hurt any less.

One day this week, I sent a query just before 5:30 P.M., and a lot of these agencies have an auto-response e-mail that lets you know your submission went through and is waiting in line with all the other millions of submissions. Most agencies have a response time of four to six weeks. I was surprised, however, that the auto-responder said someone would be in touch with me “shortly.” That was different. They seemed to pride themselves on expediency.

Well, “shortly” turned out to be midnight. Or that’s the time listed on the e-mail I received the next morning. And the opening was quite cordial. They thanked me for my query, which they “read with interest.” But they were so sorry that it just wasn’t right for them. Now, who are they trying to fool? This agency isn’t two time zones over, where someone might possibly have read it before the office closed. It’s in my time zone. In my state, actually, which, to be honest, was one of the few things that attracted me to it. So either someone stayed after hours to read submissions and then sent the robo-rejections, or some computer program scanned it for key words, didn’t find what it was looking for, then sent the rejection when it was done. I’m going with the latter option.

There are a lot of things that bother me about this, but the first is that their response flat-out lies. You don’t want to do business with me, so why sugar-coat it? Just say, “You know what, your type of submission isn’t what we want right now. No thanks.” I’ve heard this before and moved on. Don’t tell me you “read it with interest” when the only person in the building was the janitor. And, of course, since this is a form rejection, all authors receive it. We’re all being lied to.

Second, they asked for a writing sample. Why bother? Well, I suppose the software that reads for them could send up a red flag if the writing sample was full of typos, but even if I don’t write the most gripping queries, they’re grammatically correct. (Well, one that I sent out did have a big typo that I didn’t catch until the next day, so when I receive that rejection, I will fully deserve it. But I digress.) I always bemoaned that, when querying by mail, the agents judged me based on a one-page cover letter. I would try to throw in lines from my book, hoping to show my style, but that approach never worked. I recently had the opportunity for an agent to critique an excerpt of my story, and she said the voice and opening were strong. So if they’ll just read the bit of story that I send (and I only send the length they ask for), they’ll have to admit it’s well-written, even if it’s not subject matter that they want to represent.

The vindictive part of me wants to become the next J.K. Rowling, so I can rub it in the rejectors’ faces. But really, I just want someone out there to give my middle grade fantasy novel the time of day. They certainly don’t seem to mind representing some of the absolute garbage that litters the bookshelves. But I refuse to write something sensational, just to sell copies. If no one wants to publish my story, I know a great place that’s friendly to indie authors, and it’s called Smashwords.com. (I’ve already published my short story “Stranded” there and have another story in the works.) There are many indie authors out there who are doing pretty well, even getting discovered by big agents and publishers. I was encouraged when my cousin sent me Hugh Howey’s publishing story this week. It would be a stretch for the same kind of circumstances to happen for me, but. . . maybe there’s hope for this girl, after all.

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To Prologue or Not to Prologue?

Storm Brewing, Vancouver

 Photo credit: world of jan

I am getting ready to do the whole submit-and-reject thing again with my list of agents. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky this time. Like I’ve said before, my novel is much improved from the last time I tried to get an agent. And this time I have a little more hope for my query. The thing I’m nervous about, however, is the bit of story I’m submitting, the bit that will make an agent excited (or not) about my writing. The bit that kids will probably read and then decide if they want to spend their allowances on my book.

I recently attended a webinar with agent Mary Kole, and the first topic she addressed in her Q&A (and it also gets a good-sized section in her book Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers) is about prologues—and she strongly suggests not to write them. The argument against them is that the prologue will pack a punch, fooling readers into thinking the first chapter will continue being just as exciting. In actuality, the first chapter is a big disappointment, including back story and info dump and blah-ness. Why not just write a strong start to begin with?

I’d never considered prologues in that light before. I can think of plenty of books that had prologues that I really enjoyed, but in none of them did I feel cheated when I got to Chapter One. The first chapter of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone is like a prologue in that it starts years before the present of the rest of the story. Whether you call it a prologue or the first chapter, it is what it is, right?

The opening of my book is the same—an opening years (actually decades) before the main story. It sets up the plot and gives a taste of what happened to get us to the story. And beta readers like the book much better with this bit of fore-story included. So what’s a writer to do? I’m going to include it, dadgummit. But just for kicks, I’m going to put it here, see what you think. I’ve always hesitated to put my unpublished fiction online because, if readers like it, but it gets changed, they might be disappointed with the published work. Or if it’s terrible now, I’m metaphorically shooting myself in the foot. Well, I’m shooting away. Here it is, the prologue/opening/whatever-you-want-to-call-it of what is currently titled Kingdom of Secrets. Read below, or download the PDF from the My Fiction page, and then let me have it!

 

Kingdom of Secrets: Prologue Excerpt

by Sarah Cotchaleovitch

Ella knew she shouldn’t do it. Mama wouldn’t like it one bit.

After much lip gnawing and twisting of her brown hair between her stubby fingers, Ella decided she couldn’t let the poor pup die.

She ran inside to fetch her mother’s emergency kit from the cupboard over the sink.

Climbing onto a chair, Ella scrambled onto the counter and stood on her tiptoes, but the cupboard was still too high for a girl of four to reach. Not to be thwarted, she got down and dragged the stool up to the chair. She hoisted it onto the counter, stood on top, and swung the cupboard door wide, revealing Mama’s kit.

Movement through the kitchen window caught her attention, reminding her there was a sick pilfit pup waiting outside.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ella whispered. She nearly toppled off the stool in her haste.

Kit held in front of her, she scuttled outside. The pup lay panting in the shade of the hedge, looking for all of Terra like a cross between a raccoon and a dwarf rabbit.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make you all better.”

The pup gave a half-hearted yelp and closed his eyes.

Ella’s favorite thing about the emergency kit was the bottle of hot water. Whenever her mother bought another one, the merchant always promised her silver back if it went cold before two months’ time.

How often had she seen Mama brew a restorative? Into a bowl went a splash of hot water; steam spiraled into the air. The first part was a success, at least.

“Let’s see, let’s see.” Ella’s fingers played over the jars. She couldn’t read, so she trusted her memory of what the ingredients looked like. A bead of sweat formed on her brow and slid down her nose. She brushed it away, gave her concoction a quick stir, and held the bowl under the pup’s snout. “Drink, boy. It’s good.”

The pup opened his eyes and whimpered.

“It’s okay, I promise. Just—just take a sip.” She tilted the bowl toward him.

His black nose twitched, and the pup tested the liquid with his tongue. Starting slowly, he lapped every bit and licked the bowl clean.

Ella moved the pup’s head onto her lap, running her fingers through his silver fur. After a wash and a brush, he would be the fluffiest pilfit in Jackson Village.

The pup sighed. Ella held her breath. He opened his eyes: blue with brown flecks.

“You’re so pretty, Clumps,” she said, naming him without a second thought.

He sat up and yelped, an almost-human sound, the sound of a healthy pilfit.

“Oh, Clumps, you’re all better!” She hugged him to her chest.

“Ella!”

The girl stumbled upward, Clumps dangling without protest in her arms.

Her mother stood at the kitchen window. “Is that my emergency kit?” Dark-haired and blue-eyed like Ella, Mama was madder than a fish in firegrass at the moment.

“Mama! Mama, he was dying. I had to! His mama—she got into the poison mushrooms. All his brothers and sisters died, but I saved him, Mama! Oh, please, please can I keep him?”

Her mother’s face told Ella that she could not keep Clumps, nor would she be allowed a pet for the rest of her life. She mightn’t ever be allowed in the kitchen again, either.

But next second Mama was gone from the window, and that was worse. She was coming to Investigate the Situation.

“Clumps, maybe you’d better go.”

Too late, here she was.

Ella’s mother leaned over and scooped the pilfit pup into her arms. Gentler than her tone suggested, she scratched behind Clumps’s ears, prodded him a little, made him open his mouth. “I’ve got to be more careful around you,” she muttered. “You brewed that restorative perfectly. How did you figure it out?”

“Just. . . just watching you, Mama.” Ella pressed her lips together. This was turning out differently than expected.

“Well, you know I’m going to tell your father when he comes home. We’ll talk about whether you can keep this pup—”

“His name’s Clumps, Mama.”

“Oh, you’ve named him already?”

“Yes, Mama.”

Ella’s mother handed the pup back to her. “Let me be very clear,” she said in her this-is-your-last-warning voice. “You may never get into my things without asking permission again. And never brew a cloakbane without my help. Got it?”

Ella’s eyes were wide and tearful. She nodded slowly twice. Maybe it would be a while before she brewed another, but if she could save the life of a pilfit pup, she knew she could do other wonderful things.

She would give the whole incident some time to filter to the back of her mother’s memory before mentioning that, though.

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Where Do Stories Come From?

The stork, right? Oh, wait, I’m getting confused–the stork is for babies. With stories, it’s a muse, or some other mysterious Something Out There. And while I joke about my muse or a great cosmic ocean of stories that trickle or flood into the minds and out of the pens of the writers they choose, my most successful stories certainly were not born of classroom assignments or formulas.

Sometimes a fictional situation or character takes me by surprise. This usually happens when I’ve had some form of artistic stimulation. For instance, while listening to a particularly moving song, a scene might pop into my head, not just begging but demanding to be transcribed. Then I’m left with the problem of building the story that goes with it.

There are other times that an event in my life so moves me that I must write to resolve or discover my own feelings about that situation. My story “Stranded” at Smashwords.com is a good example. Many readers think it doesn’t resolve, but what I’ve discovered is that the people who have the most difficult time with it believe a story isn’t finished if all the loose ends aren’t tied in pretty little bows. “What happens?” they ask. And I want to say that that’s not the point. Believe me, I’ve tried to change the ending or write a sequel. But every time I attempted to put a pat ending on it, it rang false. I decided to let the story be true to itself, even if it ticked off certain of my audience. And, in my opinion, some stories should stay that way.

There are other writers out there who have tried to answer questions for readers, and they often ruin a good story for me. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre are two stories that, as far as I am concerned, should stand alone. Yet other authors wrote sequels (Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, respectively) that turned the original stories upside down. I guess while they make for interesting discussion, I wish I’d never read them.

So if some stories seem so incomplete or displeasing that other people find it necessary to “finish” them, why are they told to begin with? I don’t think storytelling has as much to do with finding out whodunit or the good guy defeating the bad guy as exploring the issues and truths that stimulated the stories’ authors to write. There are far fewer stories that dig and claw with bloodied fingernails for the truth than those that are written for publishing’s sake. These latter writers I call hacks, and they cheapen publishing for those of us who agonize over cutting scenes that we toiled over for weeks. They write to make a buck, not out of passion or soul-searching need. I would argue that, if there is a muse out there, he or she is not welcome by these people. Why? Because if writers open themselves to being ambushed by stories, they have to do difficult things, think uncomfortable thoughts, and face dark moments within themselves in order to tell the stories that need to be told. Plus, it is never easy writing something you don’t want to write but, nevertheless, must. J.K. Rowling wept when she killed Sirius Black, but he had to die, otherwise she could not have finished Harry’s tale.

The reason I know that “Stranded” is done is because of the satisfaction I felt when I last revised it. I resolved my own feelings about the issues behind my story, and it serves its particular purpose. If someone, someday feels compelled to write more about my characters, I only hope that it is because the story has found the right person to pick up the thread, rather than someone trying to tie up loose ends that should have remained untied.

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Read the Submission Guidelines First, Folks

Teen and Young Adult Fiction

Teen and Young Adult Fiction (Photo credit: Blue Train Books)

I haven’t kept up with my blog this past week, but it’s for a good reason, I promise. Or at least the original intent was good.

You see, a writer friend posted something on Facebook about Harper Voyager, an imprint of the publisher HarperCollins, allowing unagented submissions of science fiction and fantasy for the first two weeks of October. When I first read it, I thought it was too good to be true. But then I saw that it included young adult fiction, and I have a young adult fantasy novel that I’ve been peddling to different agents for years. Two babies and an almost-two-year stint with a scammer agent have caused several hiccups on my road toward hopeful publication, but I recently became enthusiastic again. And why search for an agent if a publishing house is seeking submissions?

There was one stipulation that made me hesitate, and it was that the manuscripts that are chosen will be printed digitally. My dream has always been to see my book on a shelf in a bookstore or clutched in an eager reader’s hands, but I figured I had nothing to lose. Getting my foot in the publication door in any way possible would segue into traditional publishing later, I hoped. So I pulled out my manuscript and went back to the beginning, working on one final revision.

It has not gone as quickly as I hoped. I have sacrificed a lot of extracurricular activities (such as writing this blog) to proofread and edit. On a really productive night, I might get through twenty-five to thirty pages (and my manuscript is over two hundred forty double-spaced pages). I told myself I needed to have it done as early during the submission window as possible, so I wouldn’t kill myself to do one last proofread before the deadline. But with an ending that I’ve recently changed and little time to devote to polishing it, it’s become the last-minute rush that I feared. And I didn’t want to blow it by turning in a manuscript that read like I was flying by the seat of my pants.

The deadline is this Sunday. Optimistically, I thought I might finish editing by tomorrow (Wednesday), as long as that pesky new ending didn’t trip me up. Then it occurred to me that I really would be in panic mode if I tried to submit it on the last day, only to find out they required a synopsis, too. And there is nothing I loathe more than writing a synopsis (but that’s for another blog).

What was it about today that made me finally look up the submission guidelines? Was it God’s cruel trick, since I’m so close to the end of my revision? I guess it’s better finding out today rather than Saturday or Sunday. Finding out what? you ask. That I’ve been working my butt off, trying to trim my book to under sixty-six thousand words, and Harper Voyager requires a minimum of seventy thousand, although they prefer eighty to one hundred, that’s what. Usually, my problem is that I am too verbose, so I have struggled to take the axe to my poor literary babies. And this time, all that hard work has put me out of the running for a potentially career-changing opportunity. Now, I can come up with fluff all day long, but when it comes down to it, I need to be true to my story. It started out at over seventy thousand words, but over the years and after much editing, it has come to life only after I’ve pared it down and chiseled away the rough edges. And it fits right into the conventionally accepted length for young adult fiction. Why Harper Voyager doesn’t have a separate requirement for young adult fiction, I don’t know. . . but I have a good guess.

I am one of many readers for the University of North Florida’s online literary journal Fiction Fix, and let me tell you that we receive a ridiculous number of submissions—and we’re not big like Glimmer Train or HarperCollins. Like the Field of Dreams, if you publish it, they will submit. Manuscripts, that is. Good, bad, grammatically depraved, eloquently penned, we get it all. And although our submission guidelines are not all that stringent, I can attest that there are times when the format (or lack of format) of a particular story decides whether it stays or goes. No, we don’t require twelve-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, but if an author decides to single space some eleven-point font or smaller, I’m probably going to get a headache and say, Why didn’t you have more respect for the person who would have to read this? No! And what makes the people at Harper Voyager any different? Their submission guidelines are there to help them control the quality and quantity of what they have to read.

While lamenting to my mother this afternoon about the whole debacle (and admittedly feeling a tiny bit of relief that I am not going to kill myself, after all, to meet the deadline), I laid out all the facts. My story fit all the criteria listed; in fact, it seemed as if Harper Voyager was talking to me, like it knew about my story and wanted me to submit it. Except for that itsy bitsy thing about the word count. (And did I mention it’s the first thing listed on their submission guidelines?) Maybe if I did a good job of pleading my case, they would make an exception for me, right? I mean, after all, J.K. Rowling broke the rules and submitted Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1)
to an agent who didn’t generally consider that kind of fiction, and look where she is today. By not submitting, am I missing out on my own J.K. Rowling moment?

Mama pointed out to me that they will probably receive so many submissions that they will be looking for excuses to reject manuscripts. Can’t meet the number one requirement on our list? Out! Don’t care if it is the best young adult manuscript ever—learn to color inside the lines like all the other kids!

Does this make them hateful and limiting? I don’t think so; it’s a business decision, to which there are natural consequences, such as being rejected for submitting something that doesn’t meet all the requirements. And I would encourage anyone who does have a manuscript that qualifies to give it a whirl—what can it hurt? As for me, I can still try the agent route. Or I could publish on my own, who knows? One thing I know for sure, I am going to read the submission guidelines first from now on, so as to curb the headaches and heartache that come with striving toward a useless goal. And I am still motivated to write, with or without Harper Voyager as the carrot dangling in front of me, thank goodness.

I am moving on, publication or not. Time to write.

by

Sometimes I Like to Be a Wee Bit British

English: British versions of the Harry Potter ...

Bloomsbury editions of the Harry Potter series

When my husband and I saw the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we joked that if we ever had a daughter, we’d have to teach her to speak with a British accent because Lucy Pevensie was just so darn cute. As fate would have it, we had two boys instead, so I guess we’ll never know if we would have stuck to the plan. But there are still many things British that we love.

We’re Harry Potter geeks, so much so, in fact, that when I found that some of the language was Americanized in the Scholastic editions, I searched far and wide and finally purchased the Bloomsbury (British) editions of all seven books. There’s something about reading the words the way J.K. Rowling wrote them (not to mention that the title of the first book was changed in the American version) that makes me feel like I’m getting a more authentic experience.

I have to extend my love to the entire United Kingdom. I recently saw Disney Pixar’s Brave, and anything with bagpipes stirs my soul. (And I still say that real men wear kilts.) Being Presbyterian, I am Scottish by denomination, although my heritage is mostly Irish.

I guess the biggest give-aways about my occasional British affinity are a couple spelling choices that I make. I cannot make myself write “gray” or “theater,” unless, of course, those spellings are used in proper nouns. I’m more of a “grey” and “theatre” kind of girl. I can’t ever remember a time when I chose to write these words the preferred American way, nor did any teachers ever try to correct me—nor should they. I suppose I’m inconsistent, since I still write “color” and “labor” instead of adding the optional “u,” but I’m not the only one out there doing these kinds of things, am I? Come on, somebody, admit you like to break out of the mold a little, too. (And not capitalizing doesn’t count! e.e. cummings already took that one.)