Dude-lit, "objects in motion", and a short story

A few years ago, Heather Wright @wrightwriter and I worked on a project together: an anthology of stories featuring boys. We were inspired by our shared experience of being the mothers of avid-reader boys, but we were also inspired by a session we attended at the @CANSCAIP PYI conference, led by Shane Peacock (no slouch in the writing-for-boys category). 

Yes, you can argue that #kidlit and #yalit books are for everyone, and maybe they are, but Shane’s take was this: if you want to appeal to young male readers, you need to feature “objects in motion.” Objects in motion. I love this! So, Heather and I wrote some stories and created our little anthology, Dude! No, there aren’t “objects in motion” in every story, but the idea of targeting a unique audience in a way that appeals and nurtures a love of reading certainly is.

Prolific award-winning YA author Pam Withers (her latest, Drone Chase, is featured on the CBC list of YA books to watch for this spring) sees the need for dude-lit, too. She’s the force behind the website yadudebooks.ca, which features reviews, author profiles and articles about books for boys. 

Pam asked if she could share a couple of our Dude! stories, so a few week’s ago Heather’s story “Shovelling Snow” was posted on her site. Today it’s my turn.

“Accused” is the story of a boy who finds himself on the wrong side of an incident at school, and the unlikely hero who believes in him. You can read it here: Accused. 

And please stick around and check out what Pam's innovative YADudeBooks site has to offer young readers, parents, teachers and librarians, as well as writers and publishers in the world of books for boys.

Trends in YA Fiction: Changes afoot...?

"What's trending?" someone asked a panel of publishers, agents and editors at the Packaging Your Imagination (PYI) conference this past weekend in Toronto. Sitting at the front of the room were Red Deer publisher and editor, Peter Carver (moderating), editor Christine Harken of Clockwise Press, agent Barbara Berson of Helen Heller Agency, editor Suzanne Sutherland of Harper Collins, and Art Director Michael Solomon of Groundwood Books.

It was my last session of the day - and the fifth, including the morning keynote - in the same room. Lunch was a distant memory, and the drive home down the dark, rainy 401 was looming (after the upcoming final keynote, of course - yes, in the same room).

I admit it: I was fading.

We'd already heard about promoting your published book and how helpful agents can be when negotiating terms for your published book. Which is all great if you have a published book.

(I don't. Well, actually I do. Two of them. But it was so long ago, so I'm classified as "starting out" again. Agents, book promotion? I wish!)

But the question about trends made me sit up, and here's why:

Trends interest me. As a writer, I've done my research, checked out the lists of award-winning YA books and their publishers. I know what teens are reading and buying and taking out from the library and maybe even studying in school. Books like Eleanor and Park, or The Hunger Games, or We Are All Made of Molecules, or anything by John Green.

But, but... that's just not the kind of story I write. I'm constantly asking myself: Should I write for the market, or should I write for myself? My stories are different from those best-sellers. Less edgy and angsty, more - gentle.

So, back to the conference and the panel at the front of the (now very familiar) room:

"What's trending?"

The short answer was "Diversity". Not just cultural, ethnic diversity among authors and the stories they tell, but gender diversity as well. This comes as no surprise, of course, if we're in touch with the world around us. Kids reading about diversity is a good thing, even if the current YA lens is pretty darn dark...

But what did make me sit up even straighter was the comment by editor Suzanne Sutherland of Harper Collins - which drew nods from the others - that (I'm paraphrasing) given the length of time it takes to acquire, produce and release a book into the market, today's trend may not be around in a couple of years. Dinosaurs were mentioned at this point. Also wizards. And, of course, vampires.

The panel's observation gives me hope. Why? Because maybe change is in the air...

Maybe that manuscript I'm sending out to publishers RIGHT NOW is on the crest of a new wave. - a wave of gentler, subtler stories for thoughtful teens. Stories the reader has to work for, but is just as deeply engaging as the dark, edgy books showing up on many of the lists today.

Come on - there have to be readers out there who would prefer a string quartet to a heavy metal rock band. (Yes, my novel is about a musician. And a hockey player.) (Ok, a violent hockey player...)

That's the thing about trends. They do change. And they change because this is what readers want to read. In publisher-speak: this is what sells.

If the recent U.S. election showed us anything (oh, well, it showed us way too much, actually, but that's another story), it confirmed that young people are smart, aware and educating themselves about the world around them. (This wonderful piece by The Globe's Mark Kingwell, a philosophy professor, expresses how wrong it is to underestimate millennials, who were, of course, teenagers just a few years ago.)

As a writer, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that we are about to see the next trend in YA fiction creeping its way through the current manuscript submission process and making its presence known to all those acquisitions editors out there: gentler, well-written stories for engaged and thoughtful teens.

And not a dysfunctional family - or vampire - in sight.

REVIEW: Writing Fiction: A Guide for Pre-Teens by Heather Wright

  

The latest writing guide from author, teacher and professional writer Heather Wright provides everything a young writer needs: instruction, prompts, examples and, most of all, encouragement and inspiration.

“You want to write stories and the purpose of this book is to help you do exactly that,” Wright begins.

Aimed at young writers of any level or experience, this guide fine-tunes the material Wright covered in her previously published Writing Fiction: A Hands-On Guide for Teens (Second Edition, 2014).

This is the kind of book I longed for when I was a kid. It’s clear and concise without being dry. I can hear the author’s friendly and encouraging voice throughout as she guides the reader through the why, what and how of creating stories.

But more than that, she’s able to make the guide relevant to others who work with kids who write. Home schoolers? Writers-in-residence? Teachers? Parents? You bet.

The scope is broad, too. Yes, Wright provides lots of tips on the much-travelled technical side of writing stories – brainstorming for ideas, charting a plot, creating strong characters, revealing setting, making use of dialogue. But she addresses the real business of writing too, including revision tips and the classic writerly problems of “I’m stuck!” and the importance of finding the discipline to write every day.

Full disclosure – Heather is a writing colleague of mine. I know how hard she works at her writing life, and I also know how experienced and successful she is as a writer. If she could sit down at a desk with every young writer, or stand in front of a classroom full of them, the tips in this book are exactly what she would share (and she does, on school visits and in her workshops).  You could not ask for a better guide.

Writing Fiction: A Guide for Pre-Teens by Heather Wright