wild ink

When it comes to YA novels, that special quality known as a fresh voice is what every agent and editor is seeking from a new writer. So, what is this voice thing all about?

Some experts say that voice is contained in language patterns, which bring about the tone conveyed by an author’s style. Others point to the author’s message and how it relates to the writer’s roots, background, and personality. I agree that such factors are certainly part of voice, but those definitions are unsatisfactory and incomplete, a little like saying that great singing voices can be understood by knowing the singers’ temperament, upbringing, and the many muscular contractions that vibrate their vocal chords.

Voice is more than that. For singers, it’s about infusing their spirit into the music. For writers, voice is about you infusing your spirit into what you write.

Your Inner Teen Exercise

Getting to know your adolescent self again can be a valuable touchstone. You want that inner teen by your side as you write your YA book. He or she will help you more than anyone else.

This list of questions brings up the emotions of teenhood. I suggest making notes to yourself as you go through the list. You might be surprised at which questions strike you more than others. Don’t be concerned if the answers to some of the questions happened during times in your life that fell before or after ages 13–19. Remember, the spirit of youth can move us at any time. The important thing is to get a feeling for how that spirit has affected you personally.

What is your clearest memory of feeling alienated? Misunderstood? Betrayed?

What is the most unfair thing that has happened to you? What did you do?

In what way did your upbringing seem utterly different from that of your peers?

When have you gone against peer pressure to follow your conscience?

How do you react to authority? What’s an example of authority being wrong? Right?

What has been your moment of greatest rebellion? How about your greatest dream of rebellion?

What’s the greatest risk you’ve taken? How did it work out?

Have you done something impulsive that had a long-lasting effect on your life?

Have you been disbelieved when you were telling the truth? Have you feared the truth enough to lie? Has someone lied to you about something important?

What is the most traumatic historical event you have lived through? How close were you to the actual events of that history?

Have you grown apart from a dear friend? If so, was it gradual or sudden?

Have you ever been so embarrassed you wanted to sink through the floor?

What’s the most unconventional thing you’ve done? The most thoughtless?

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?

Have you been in a situation from which there seemed to be no way out? What did you do?

When was the loneliest time in your life? How did you deal with it?

When did you first fall in love? What happened?

Has someone important to you rejected you?

Have you ever lost control completely or done something so wild you surprised yourself?

Have you laughed so hard you cried? Cried so hard you laughed?

Have you ever suddenly changed your appearance dramatically?

What has been your most euphoric moment? How did it change you?

What have you longed to do but never done?

What have you yearned to find but never found?

What and whom would you die for?

Now that you’ve finished answering these questions, do you have a sense of a teen voice inside you, one with something to say? If so, without stopping to analyze, write a paragraph or two in that voice. Hint: You can apply this inner teen exercise to any of the characters in your novel, asking them the same series of questions.

You have lots of tools for expressing character voice—among them dialogue and action—but point of view (POV) is key. The point of view you choose will set up the way readers experience the story you’re telling.

First person is conducive to the intimate, confiding style that puts readers right in the middle of a young protagonist’s head. Will your story be enhanced by offering readers details about your narrator’s inner life? Do you feel close enough to your viewpoint character to be able to write convincingly as him or her? If so, then first person is your ideal POV.

Every writer who uses first person will treat it a little differently. Some write as if the protagonist is opening up to a diary, including thoughts and feelings as much as action and dialogue. Others spend less time on introspection. Either way, first person makes it easy to transition seamlessly from writing action to revealing a narrator’s thoughts, as in this example from Chris Crutcher’s (2001) Whale Talk:

Although I don’t have formal data on the number of YA books written in first person, it’s safe to say that the percentage is high. The reason for this isn’t hard to figure out: In first person, protagonists have free rein to express their personalities.

Drawback to writing first person. There is a drawback to writing in first person: Action taking place “offscreen” for the protagonist must either be reported in dialogue by other characters or else deduced by the protagonist. Ideally then, the protagonist is present for any scenes central to the story. This requirement also places limits on the plot, because the protagonist can’t be everywhere at once. So if you’ve written a number of subplots involving other characters who take actions that aren’t witnessed by the protagonist, it can be challenging to present your story in first person without cutting the action or making the book “too talkie.”

An advantage of first person. One of the most delightful attributes of first person is the ease with which other characters can be portrayed through the voice of the narrator. This excerpt from Stephanie Perkins’s (2010) debut novel, Anna and the French Kiss, shows how first person can reveal traits of both the narrator and her father:

My father isn’t cultured. But he is rich.

It wasn’t always like this. When my parents were still married, we were strictly lower middle class. It was around the time of the divorce that all traces of decency vanished, and his dream of being the next great Southern writer was replaced by his desire to be the next published writer. So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die.

I’m serious.

And it totally depresses me, but the ladies eat it up. They love my father’s books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleached smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick. (pp. 4–5)

Anna’s opinion of her father is clear. And because this is early in the novel and Anna doesn’t hold anything back, readers can expect that they’ll get all of the juicy details of her romantic life in Paris.

First person style. Here’s another first person excerpt, this one from Laurie R. King’s bestselling crossover YA novel set during World War I, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994). The narrator is young Mary Russell.

I can’t resist making a note here, about style and voice. In the examples above, both Perkins and King break rules of writing. (Hard and fast rules are a bit silly, aren’t they?) For example, a stickler for rules might say that the word and appears too many times here: “They love my father’s books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleached smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick.” But really the sentences are splendidly structured to showcase character voice. Also note Laurie R. King’s use of the modifying adverbs morosely and almost. Some writing instructors are vehemently opposed to using modifying adverbs. Ever. And yet, when it comes to character voice, it’s more effective to say “dripping morosely onto the stones” than to say “dripping onto the stones.” The same is true of the “almost dry” handkerchief, which in this case is far better than “damp.”

So here’s a new rule: Character voice transcends rules. Don’t be afraid to ignore rules when your character’s voice calls for something different!

Past tense versus present tense. Once a rarity, present tense has been gaining popularity in YA novels. Past tense and present tense carry different flavors, of course, and we’ll take a closer look at those differences a little later in this chapter. For now, here are several more examples of both, to give you a sense of the differences.

Examples of first person present tense. In Allen Zadoff’s (2009) Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have, his protagonist, a guy in high school, is 100 pounds overweight. (Zadoff lost 100 pounds after high school himself, and every word of his book rings true.)

Lauren Myracle (2005) deftly reveals her narrator’s personality in the fashion disaster that changed my life:

I think I need those nose strip thingies I saw on a commercial, where the girl puts one on her nose, and when she pulls it off, it’s covered with little stalactites of dirt. I think whoever invented those strips is very smart. It’s like, did I know I was walking through life under a crust of gunk? (p. 29)

Examples of first person past tense. Here’s how David Lubar (2002) opens his book Dunk:

His voice ripped the air like a chain saw. The harsh cry sliced straight through my guts the first time I heard it. The sound cut deep, but the words cut deeper. He shredded any fool who wandered near the cage. He drove people wild. He drove them crazy. Best of all, he drove them to blow wads of cash for a chance to plunge his sorry butt into a tank of slimy water. (p. 1)

Mom took me to buy school clothes toward the end of the week. She let Pete buy his by himself, but me she had to take. I don’t care a whole lot about clothes, but there ought to be a school to teach mothers how to buy clothes for their kids, at least when their kids are boys. (p. 25)

First person multiple. Can you have more than one first-person narrator in the same novel? Yes. Basically, you can do whatever you like when writing a novel, as long as you make it work. If your story is best told from inside the head of more than one narrator, then that’s how you should write it. But be sure to bring out a distinct character voice for each narrator.

Second person presents the narrator as “you.” Few YA books are written this way, just as few are written for adults. As a style, second person is difficult to sustain for page after page of prose: It’s more suited to short bursts of conversation in the lunchroom, as in, “You don’t really know what you’re dealing with until it hits you in the face.” Even people who sometimes speak in second person don’t refer to themselves as “you” each and every time, so it’s quite challenging to keep up the “you” POV for the duration of a novel. However, that hasn’t prevented some authors from carrying it out. Here’s a YA example from Chris Barton’s (2011) Can I See Your I.D.?: True Stories of False Identities:

You’re not stealing the train—anymore than someone can steal an escalator. It’s going to come right back to where you got it, isn’t it? At least, that’s how you see it when you walk out on the platform with your bag containing a motor man’s two main tools—a brake handle and a reverser key—along with a Day-Glo orange safety vest. (p. 3)

As you can see, in the right hands, second person has its charms. It’s immediate and informal, and it creates an unusual connection with readers.

Reader as protagonist. The Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series by R. A. Montgomery, which is written in second person and targets readers 10–14, has had an extremely successful run. CYOA stories are structured to literally address the reader as “you,” turning him or her into the protagonist.

Though not as prevalent as first person, third person POV is also represented in YA books. Unlike first person, where every word must be dedicated in part to showing character voice, the third person narrator can be a more objective reporter, one step removed. This is an advantage when the author wants to focus on the events of the novel without giving quite as much attention to the personal perspective and voice of the narrator.

There are many ways to write in third person. The narrative can dip into the viewpoint of several characters or stick with one. Let’s take a quick look at several of the options.

Third person limited. Third person limited follows only one character’s consciousness, so just like first person, reporting actions that take place “offscreen” for the viewpoint character is not permitted except through dialogue. Here’s an example from Dia Calhoun’s (2000) YA novel Aria of the Sea:

Cerinthe struggled with the hooks on her dancing tunic; it felt tight and small. After she yanked the last hook, the tunic slipped from her shoulders, and the white muslin crumpled around her feet. She wanted to kick it across the room. Plain old muslin! Why hadn’t Tonea told her to wear a fancy costume? She had danced in muslin among girls dressed like princesses in satin, silk, and lace. (p. 12)

Third person multiple. Third person multiple presents more than one viewpoint character. Sometimes there are two, and sometimes more. Scenes are limited to what the viewpoint character for that particular scene can perceive. This POV works well when the plot is complex.

In Amy Kathleen Ryan’s (2011) Glow, the action-packed plot demands two viewpoint characters: the girl, Waverly, and the boy, Kieran, who are separated from each other early in the book.

Hilari Bell’s (2003) novel, Goblin Wood, also follows two viewpoint characters, Makenna and Tobin.

Character voice in third person. Sometimes authors writing in third person use voice to communicate personality, more like first person. Scenes are viewed through various characters, but rather than staying in the narrator-as-reporter mode, word choice differs for each viewpoint. My book The Light of the Oracle (2005) uses third person multiple with an emphasis on character voice. For example, here are three (out of eight) characters who get viewpoint scenes.

The omniscient view is all-knowing, and it can therefore describe any character (and his or her thoughts and feelings) in any setting, anywhere, anytime. The choice the author must make is how much to reveal and when and about whom. For this reason, omniscient is also known as unlimited.

Omniscient or unlimited view, once the standard for novels, has become more unusual; it’s rare to find it in YA books published today. One example, by author Anna Godberson, is the Luxe historical romance series, which is rated for ages 14 and up. In Envy (2009), one of the books in the series, most chapters start out in a clearly omniscient voice and then follow one of the characters more closely for the rest of the chapter, as in this excerpt:

Occasional omniscience. Sometimes, the occasional foray into omniscience strengthens a novel that is otherwise seen through viewpoint characters. For example, although the bulk of each Harry Potter book is through Harry Potter’s viewpoint, author J. K. Rowling (2007) doesn’t hesitate to use the omniscient view when her story calls for it, as in this example from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

Many miles away the chilly mist that had pressed against the Prime Minister’s windows drifted over a dirty river that wound between overgrown, rubbish-strewn banks. An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous. There was no sound apart from the whisper of the black water and no sign of life apart from a scrawny fox that had slunk down the bank to nose hopefully at some old fish-and-chip wrappings in the tall grass. (p. 19)

Taking occasional flights of omniscience is convenient for books with lots of action taking place in various locations involving several characters.

Omniscience as applied to graphic novels. The view in graphic novels is omniscient, but because of the economy of words called for by the genre, omniscience functions differently. It’s still the author’s decision whom to include, and when and where, and which thoughts to reveal. But every line of illustration will convey hundreds of words of narrative. All dialogue, internal and external, is supremely distilled. And when narrative is utilized, it’s carefully written to tell as much as possible with the least number of words, augmenting the illustrations.

Now that we’ve seen some examples of both past and present tense, let’s delve a little more deeply into tenses and how they play out in a novel. When it suits the story, present tense helps pick up the pace and give a sense of immediacy to the action. But it doesn’t always suit the story. To illustrate, here are examples of past tense converted to present tense and vice versa.

T. A. Barron’s (1999) YA novel The Mirror of Merlin is part of series in which the protagonist, Merlin, looks back on his life.

Tilting my head back, I peered up into the vaulting branches and drew a deep breath of air, poignant with the sweetness of cedar and pine. And something else, I realized: a slight odor of something rancid, or rotting, that lurked just beneath the sweetness. Nonetheless, I drank in the aromas, for as much as I disliked being lost, I always savored being in a forest. (p. 27)

Tilting my head back, I peer up into the vaulting branches and draw a deep breath of air, poignant with the sweetness of cedar and pine. And something else, I realize: a slight odor of something rancid, or rotting, that lurks just beneath the sweetness.

But putting it in present tense doesn’t fit, because the story is written as reminiscent from a wise man looking back over many years. Converting this book into present tense would destroy the credibility of the narrator.

In 8th Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (2010), the young voice of the narrator is a perfect fit for present tense:

“Hey, Pukey, got a pen?” Hector Vega jabs me in the back. He does this every day. Mostly so he can write “The Villain Vega”—his future pro wrestling name—all over his notebooks. I hand a blue ballpoint over my shoulder without looking, then Hector taps me so I can turn around and see him stick the pen down his throat and fake gag. (p. 3)

When the same passage is rewritten in past tense, some of its vitality is immediately lost:

“Hey, Pukey, got a pen?” Hector Vega jabbed me in the back. He did this every day. Mostly so he could write “The Villain Vega”—his future pro wrestling name—all over his notebooks. I handed a blue ballpoint over my shoulder without looking, then Hector tapped me so I could turn around and see him stick the pen down his throat and fake gag.

When writing in present tense, flashbacks or recollections of the past use simple past tense rather than past perfect. In this excerpt from Pam Bachorz’s (2009) Candor, note how the tense moves from present to past in the last paragraph:

But if Candor had been written in past tense rather than present, here’s how the recollection would need to be written:

The motto “show, don’t tell” is very big in writing instruction. And while there’s good reason for this, it can be overdone.

Is it important to show rather than tell? Yes it is, most of the time. But every great writer mixes showing and telling. I’m even ready to make the claim that an author’s unique way of combining the two is a large part of what makes up writerly voice. We’ll get into this in more depth in a moment. Before we do, here’s my brief definition of the difference between showing and telling.

Showing: When showing, a writer sets forth precisely what is said and done by the characters, and what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched. Showing uses dialogue, action, and sensory description.

Telling: When telling, a writer evaluates or interprets for the reader, informs the reader of what a character thinks or feels, or inserts what is known from a previous time. Telling uses narrative.

If an author feels burdened by the need to keep every last thing in “show” mode, the story can get needlessly complicated. Sometimes it’s best to just come right out and tell the reader what’s up. Here’s an example of straight telling from The Hunger Games:

Say you are poor and starving as we were. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year’s supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered four times. Once, because I had to, and three times for tesserae for grain and oil for myself, Prim, and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of sixteen, my name will be in the reaping twenty times. (p. 13)

If Collins had been constrained by the notion that telling should never be used, she would not have been able to cleanly lay out the rules that apply to District 12 teens. The particular rule about the tesserae is not the focal point of the novel, but it is relevant. By imparting this crucial piece of information simply and directly, Collins saves the reader from unnecessary scenes. She can then focus on giving the appropriate weight to important actions such as Katniss volunteering in her sister’s place.

Another example from Lynda Sandoval’s (2006) Chicks Ahoy demonstrates how telling can do a good job of revealing character and situation.

Most of the students are filthy rich and perfect and drive nicer cars than either of my parents. The rest of us—mostly the offspring of local academics—huddle in the shadows of this glowing social nucleus, sort of trying to bask in the feeble rays reflecting off of their veneered teeth and Tiffany bling-bling. (p. 5)

If Sandoval stayed away from telling, she would need to contrive situations to indicate that most of the students in her character’s private school are rich and drive nice cars. This would stall the story, where being one of only a few middle class kids in a school full of rich kids needs to be established early on.

In the example from The Hunger Games above, what is told also shows a lot, through subtext. By telling the reader that she has entered her name four times each year instead of one, Katniss shows how much her family means to her: that she’s willing to increase the risks on her life to get extra grain and oil for her sister and mother.

In this excerpt from Chasing Tail Lights by Patrick Jones (2007), section a is in telling mode and section b is in showing mode. The POV is first person present tense with a female narrator named Christy, and in the book the excerpt is continuous from a to b.

a) Ryan’s room is down in the damp basement, in what used to be a storage room. The walls are cracked, and it still stinks from when it flooded a few years ago, even though we ripped up all the carpet. That stinky carpet is in a pile in the backyard, along with the other junk from our lives we can’t get rid of for some reason. Ryan throws his dirty clothes for me to wash in a basket in front of his door because I can’t bring myself to go in there without gagging. He doesn’t spend much time at home anymore, although even one second is too much by my clock.

b) I hear the front door open, and even from the distance, there’s a distinctive sour smell attacking my senses. His big always-new shoes are loud on the creaky, warped wood floors.

‘Where’s some dinner?’ I hear Ryan shout, and I feel the acid in my stomach churn. (p. 31)

When Christy tells the reader about the basement, she also communicates more about herself and Ryan: The subtext shows that she’s sensitive; that the family doesn’t know how to get rid of things in their lives that weigh them down; that Ryan lives in an uninhabitable part of the house; that Christy does his laundry and doesn’t like it when he’s around.

There is an area where telling should be absolutely off limits. Please do not tell what you’ve already shown. Here’s a hypothetical example, with the offending tell in italics:

The mirror shows me too pale, too blond, too blotchy. My mouth tastes like a car battery. I’m feeling really sick, and I don’t like the way I look right now.

Showing has already established how the character feels. Reiterating with telling only ruins a good segment.

The middle section of your book occupies approximately 50% of the length, between the first 25% and the final 25%. Lots of writers start to flounder when they get to the middle of a novel, and wonder what comes next. This is where complications and turning points provide a sense of direction and ratchet up the pace.

Turning points in the middle of your book happen because your characters are driven to make changes. Responding to the events and people around them, they select new courses of action that reveal their growth, development, and adaptation to circumstances.

Think of the major turning points in your own life. What drove you to change? And consider your favorite books. When did dramatic turning points become inevitable for the characters? If your plot is sagging, add complications. Then add more. Create situations that demand change. Those situations will bring about big turning points.

Toward the end of the middle, a turning point is reached that resolves an aspect of the central conflict, even while adding a new dimension to that same conflict. For example, after listening to Elizabeth’s angry spiel about why he’s the last man in the world she would ever marry, Darcy writes her a letter of explanation. Just before this, his pride reaches a peak. And just before she reads his letter, Elizabeth’s prejudice peaks. Darcy learns to question his unbending pride, and he reforms. After reading his letter, Elizabeth realizes that her prejudice has led her completely wrong. She changes. The letter represents a major turning point for both characters. The conflict that resided in their feelings of pride and of prejudice is removed. However, the conflict arising from the consequences of their pride and prejudice doesn’t drop away: It escalates.

The ending of your book consists of the climax and denouement. These sections together will occupy the last 25% of your novel.

During the middle portion, you intensified the central conflict through a series of complications and turning points. At the climax, all that tension you’ve developed during previous scenes will explode. Bam!

Just as Elizabeth recognizes how much Darcy means to her, Lydia runs away with Wickham and disgraces the family name. Katniss must confront the last warriors left in the games—while trying to save Peeta’s life.

From the beginning of your novel, you’ve made unspoken promises to your reader that the conflict will rise and get more complicated, and that you’ll stay with it until it’s resolved. You’ve promised that your protagonist will change, and that the climax will fit the rest of the action you’ve laid out.

Follow through. Do not cheat your reader with easy outs. Big crescendo. Deliver the payoff!

The aftermath of the climax is the resolution and the wrap. How will you resolve your central conflict? The resolution depends on your plotline. Elizabeth and Darcy’s central conflict is resolved by finding true love and getting married; Katniss’s central conflict is resolved by surviving the games. Other plotlines call for different resolutions.

For the wrap, give your readers a glimpse of important secondary characters, too. Keep it short and snappy. Leave them wanting more.

Revising is a lot of work, but it makes all the difference. Without it, your book will resemble an uncooked pancake. You’ve gone to all of the trouble of gathering top-notch ingredients. Now, it’s time to mix the batter, fire up the griddle, and line up the plates.

I realize I might seem to be overly enthusiastic about this part of the process. I admit, I adore revising. The hard work of completing that first draft is finally done. Now for the fun part! I get to don my editor’s toque and scrutinize every sentence. However, I know that some of you will not respond to the thrill of revisions. Forgive my mixed metaphors as I switch from spatulas to combs, but if you cringe at the very thought of dragging a fine-toothed comb through the tangles of your first draft, it’s time to give yourself a pep talk. You’ve come so far! If you can’t do revisions for yourself, then do them for the sake of your book. It deserves your best now, just as it deserved your best all along. Keep going.

When revising, I advise taking the process in steps. To be more exact, I divide my revision process into 14 distinct steps, described in the sections that follow.

Step 1. Let your manuscript sit. Don’t even look at it for at least 6 weeks. Six months is even better if you can afford the time. (If you’re writing on a deadline, you won’t have the luxury of 6 months, let alone 6 weeks. You’ll be lucky if you get a few days. But for your first book, this step is muy importante.)

Step 2. Print and read aloud. Hard copy reads differently than words on the screen. (Don’t ask me why.) So print your manuscript and read it over in one sitting if you can. Out loud. As you read, pretend you’ve never heard any of it before. Better yet, enlist a friend, family member, or theatre student to read aloud while you listen.

You’ll be amazed by what you find that escaped you before. We writers tend to fill in the gaps in our prose with unwritten words, not realizing that those words are actually missing from the pages. Or sometimes, we have the opposite problem: We’ve skipped over redundancies as if they don’t exist. Luckily, it’s not as easy to overlook either of these writing sins once you get some distance from your manuscript.

Personally, my first drafts suffer from both glaring gaps and unnecessary repetition. This means that when I revise, I add thousands of words and cut even more. But perhaps you are prone to overwrite without leaving gaps, or you could be someone whose first drafts are quite skeletal, with no redundancies. In any case, as you revise you can trim or add—or both.

If you allow your manuscript to sit untouched for long enough, and if the first thing you do after taking it out again is to read it aloud, you’re likely to spot much of what needs to be revised.

I think it’s important to suspend your analytical mind during this first read after taking a break from your story. Stay in touch with your gut. Listen to it. You won’t get a chance to experience your book with this degree of freshness again for a while, so don’t waste the opportunity. Don’t stop to rewrite. Allow yourself only abbreviated notes. (I write things like MORE SETTING or FLESH OUT or REDUNDANT.) Keep going straight through to the end so you can get a sense of the overall story.

Complete rewrite? I don’t want to scare you, but I should probably mention that sometimes, after your initial read-through, you’ll realize that the entire book needs to be redone. Maybe it needs a different point of view. Maybe it’s cluttered with too many messages. Maybe a secondary character who has stolen every possible scene is really the protagonist. The ending might be the real beginning. There can be any number of very big problems.

Well, if you need to start over, you need to start over. Writing really does resemble cooking in some ways. Once in a while, a cook realizes that no amount of tweaking will save that pot of soup: It’s scorched or it has too much salt or the rice was rancid. The only remedy is to toss it out and begin again. As a writer, I’ve come to similar conclusions while cooking up novels. Sometimes it’s just the beginning that needs to be redone, or the ending, or most of the middle. But sometimes, it’s the whole freakin’ book.

Is it tough to begin again? Yup. But it’s better to start page 1 with a new perspective than to hold on to 325 pages that just aren’t quite “it.” And the need to start over does not make you a bad writer. In fact, the ability to recognize what needs to be cut—and then cut it—is an essential part of success. So if you know in your gut that you’ve got a complete do-over in front of you, all I have to say is: Good going! You’re a pro, and I mean that.

As usual, this writing thing is not perfectly linear, so here’s an important caveat: Before giving up on your book, especially if it’s the first one you’ve ever written, you might want to get the opinion of a perceptive reader who knows how to dish out honest and helpful feedback. Why? Because it’s possible that you’re wrong. Maybe it isn’t really scorched or too salty or rancid. It’s possible that you’ve let your critical mind crash your read-aloud party and bring in the harsh comments too early in the process. You wouldn’t want to throw out something that just needs a dash of pepper or something.

No writing time is wasted. Even if you toss an entire book, you did not waste your time. It isn’t love’s labor lost, because all of the writing you do improves all of the writing you do. This bears repeating: All of the writing you do improves all of the writing you do. Just like strength training improves an athlete’s running speed, or playing scales over and over improves a musician’s ability to play hot riffs, all of the words you ever put together will improve your style.

Step 3. Read aloud again, with attention to specific elements of fiction. Okay, assuming you’ve got a draft you can revise, you’re ready for Step 3, which is to read it again. Out loud. This time, invite your critical-thinking brain to sit up front and take a close and careful look at the specific elements of fiction, making notes on each one.

Beginning: Is the beginning really the beginning? When does the inciting incident occur?
Message: What is the main message? What are the themes? Does everything, including all action and any subplots or symbolism, support the message and themes?
Conflict: Is it effective and related to the message and themes?
Continuity: Do all parts of the book (e.g., hair color, eye color, terrain, timeline of events) agree?
Cause and Effect: Is cause and effect demonstrated for each turning point? Have redundant scenes been cut?
Characters: Is anything done or said that’s out of character? Are the character motivations and goals well illustrated?
Dialogue: Is each character voice believable and distinct? Does each exchange reveal character and advance the plot?
Show and Tell: Are showing and telling used in the right amounts to showcase voice?
Point of View: Is it consistent? Is anything included that’s “offscreen” for a point of view character?
Setting: Are there sensory details? Is there a clear era and culture?
Ending: Does it fit? Do you deliver on your implied promises?

Step 4. First full rewrite. Enter your initial changes. Making full use of your notes, go ahead and add, subtract, multiply, and divide your words. This is your first full rewrite. Fill in gaps, remove redundancies, and remedy all of the other issues you’ve caught. This step takes a while, and it pays to give it the time that it needs.

Killing your darlings. As I mentioned in the part about beginnings, just because something is well-written doesn’t mean it belongs in your book. Alas, some of your best writing will need to be cut. Every writer experiences this strange phenomenon. Ask yourself, “If I were to cut this scene (or word, sentence, paragraph), would readers miss it?” Because if they wouldn’t, it needs to go. Padded prose is not welcome in the YA genre.

Step 5. Make an outline. Once you’ve entered your initial changes, you’re ready to make an outline. Yes, outline. Even if you, like me, hate outlines, this is the stage where outlining will definitely help you by providing another overview of your novel. At first glance, this might seem like a recap of Step 3. Trust me, by creating an actual outline, you’ll find things that you missed before.

My outlining style doesn’t exactly follow a standard format. But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not turning it in for inspection; I just want to get another angle on my story. You can design your outline any way you want and include whatever you think will help you find more things that need work.

Step 6. Analyze the action sequence. The section in your outline that describes the action is crucial to gaining an overall sense of what happens. Now that you’ve outlined each chapter, you can lay your note cards on the floor. Take a look at the sequence of the action. Is it the best sequence to build the central conflict? If not, do some shuffling. Use the plot outlines from the section on plotting to help guide you. For example, if your story is one of rags to riches, does the protagonist have believable experiences of self-discovery? If not, you’re missing a chapter or two or three.

When considering my outline cards, I often find that I’ve written a scene that duplicates something I’ve already established in another scene elsewhere. Then I have to ask myself which of those scenes does a better job and which needs to be axed. I may also notice that there are too many flashbacks; some of them need to be shortened or cut out completely. And sometimes, I’ve introduced several secondary characters that could be rolled into a single more convincing character. If so, I need to decide who stays and who goes.

Just as every scene must contribute something to the entirety of the plot, just about every scene needs an element of conflict, either in the background or foreground. Surely, I rambled on long enough when discussing the subject of conflict to convince you of its importance.

As you question and shuffle and talk to yourself, you’ll make additional notes on what you find. When you’re finished, you’re ready for the next round of changes.

Step 7. Rewrite again. Looking at all of your revision notes can be a little like contemplating how to turn a pile of squiggling worms into a good meal. Don’t panic—or if you’re panicking already, you’re normal. Yes, there’s plenty to do, but if you’ve made it this far, you can finish. Go through each page with your trusty notes by your side as you rewrite again. This step takes time, because each bit that is added or dropped will require adjustments in more than one place—and every adjustment will lead to others.

Step 8. Get feedback from perceptive readers. By now, you may be truly sick of your story. It’s very common at this stage to have no earthly idea whether it’s the worst piece of drivel ever conceived or if it’s a marvel that’s driven by genius. You may feel as if it’s hopeless and needs to be put out of its misery. But don’t trash it yet. (If your gut allowed it through Step 1, your wailing despair now is probably just overwrought nerves and exhaustion.) You may also feel as if your book is worthy of taking the literary world by storm. But don’t submit it yet, however much you may wish to do so. You still have at least five more steps, and the next one is to regain perspective.

Run it past perceptive readers. Notice I didn’t just say readers; I said perceptive readers. If ever you needed helpful critique, it’s now. And if ever an unhelpful critique could be horribly damaging, it’s now. (For definitions of helpful and unhelpful critique, see Chapter 7.) So hopefully, you’ve lined up trusted and perceptive readers who will go through your book and make notes of their own.

Step 9. Apply insights. Apply the insights gained from your perceptive readers to make another round of changes.

Step 10. Read aloud and make notes. Read the whole book through again. Aloud. Make notes.

Step 11. Enter changes. As you go, remember that there is such a thing as revising something to death. The trick is to get finished without obsessing too much over every little detail. (I’ve known people to spend 25 years writing and rewriting the same YA novel.) Remind yourself—again and again—of the story you’re telling. The story comes first. The story comes first. The story comes first.

Step 12. Read again, looking for flow. That’s right! Read it over one more time to be sure your latest changes flow seamlessly. Correct as necessary.

Step 13. Take a breather. Give yourself a day or two so that your creative mind can mull it all over and alert you to any inconsistencies before you send off your book. Really, this is the step we all skip, and the step we all wish we hadn’t skipped. It’s embarrassing when I send off a novel and then 2 days later I’m doing the laundry and suddenly receive a clear, concise (and absolutely tardy) message from my creative mind, saying the part where so and so does such and such needs to be changed to whosit getting whatsit. Horrified, I make the change and then have to send an e-mail saying, “Oops, ignore the previous draft, here’s the real one, attached.” I used to think I was the only one who did that sort of thing until I started talking to other writers—and talking to agents. Trust me, it’s worth taking that extra 48 hours.

Step 14. Done. You’ve got a stack of delicious pages, golden brown and ready to be devoured. Congratulations! Go celebrate!

Setting (when and where)
Characters (true to character?)
Action (what happens)
Conflict (within the scenes)
Dialogue (believable and necessary?)
Point of view (consistent?)
General notes

Chapter 3

Getting Your Book
In Shape:
Novel Writing, Part 2

Chapter 3

Getting Your BookIn Shape:Novel Writing, Part 2

Getting Your Book
In Shape:
Novel Writing, Part 2