I’m working on the first big revision of my latest manuscript. My betas have read it and most importantly my agent has read it.
He is more accurately a literary manager and he works only with writers and illustrators in the children’s genre be that picture books, cartoon television or YA novels.
I was very anxious while waiting to hear back from him because the manuscript was nothing like the first book of mine he’d read and subsequently sold without too much bother.
This one was set in the near past, in an unpleasant place, and filled with punk rockers and excessive behavior.
But he loved it. He loved the punk rockedness of it and the fact that it went outside the milieu.
His suggestion?
To keep it on the outside. To deviate from YA.
The book I had in my head while I was writing it was sprawling and ungainly, not always pretty, a mix of edgy and then some odd flights of fancy. That was the way my MC spoke to me.
But I was concerned that it was too off track and so I constructed a story behind it, structured it in a traditional way with a beginning, middle and end. So that something happened and it was clear and obvious and like most stories you read.
He didn’t like that bit as much.
I’m taking it all out.
And going back to a day and night in the life of my MC, the disconnectedess which mirrors her experience. It feels odd, and scary to do it this way.
“Is it ok if it’s not really about anything?” I asked him. “I mean who’s going to want to read about these drunk girls stumbling all over the place?”
“Seinfeld.”
“OK.” (but these are social outcast, punk rock chicks not NY yuppies).
As a writer I think that it’s hard when you start thinking too much about what your readers expect or what constitutes YA. And decide you know what
your readers can handle or what they may like. You don’t.
YA is as big and freaky and rebellious and messy as the lives of the teenagers who inspire it. Or it should be anyway.
I think I’ve got to learn to go with my gut instinct more, without pigeonholing my work and without worrying that what I end up with is unlike what’s already out there. Or maybe I should just stop trying to guess, and let it come from somewhere other than my conscious brain.
If it moves me, maybe it will move someone else.
Ha! This is what I tell my students ALL THE TIME! And they think I'm nuts. Granted, they think I'm nuts to start out with (aaaaand, let's face it. Not without reason.). Anyway, I'm a big believer in the abandonment of the comfort zone, to allow each piece to have its own identity, texture and tone – and that all of those things are separate from *me*. So if my last piece was high fantasy, my next will be contemporary realism. And the piece after that will be science fiction. And the piece after that will be experimental lyricism. Or whatever. I tell my students to engage in multiple projects, multiple lengths and audiences, just to keep themselves off-balance, linguistically muscular and vigorous.
I think this is a great idea, and I'm putting this post in my List of Useful Internet Links that I hand out to students at the start. Thanks for the validation, Jo! ;-D
Jo, I recently discovered the same writing lesson. The only way to grow as a writer, or as a human, is to step outside of your comfort zone. Face the fear. I'm adapting a book for film right now that has stretched me beyond what I previously thought my limits were. Am I scared every time I sit at the keyboard. But at the end of the day, words are flying from my fingers and ideas have not once stopped coming to me. Ironically, it's the only project I've ever worked on where in two years of writing, I have not been blocked once. Not even for five minutes.
Stretch, grow and write like you've never written before…. most importantly, trust yourself. Great post, Jo!
Thanks for the comments Jeanne and Kelly!
Sounds like you're in new and exciting territory! Good luck!
Thanks Jill!