Query Critique Opportunity

Hey guys! Agent Meredith Barnes at Lowenstein Associates is running a fun tit-for-tat over at her blog. You spread the word about a list of Lowenstein clients' books, and she will critique your query. This is open until SUNDAY so get on it, kids! Guidelines are at the blog link above.

So here's the booklist - many of them sound awesome. You may have noticed me pimping them on Twitter. (I sort of wimped out on the nonfiction, though, because it's sort of inappropriate for folks my age. XD But now that I have more room to explain...)

• Deborah Camp (A mix of contemporary and Old West Historical romances...over 40 coming in the near future, but here is a list of 10 or so available now)
• Lorena Dureau (Historical Romance: American Colonial South and West. Very Sexy)
• Dan Streib (thrillers with a James-Bond-meets-Anderson-Cooper main character)
• Barbara Keesling (her too-hot-to-blog nonfiction is here, here, and here)

Enjoy! Tweet! Blog! Et cetera! Support writers --> fun and profit!

All the best,

Riley

Pitch and First 150 for Brenda Drake's Contest

Title: I'M GAME
Genre: YA Sci-fi Thriller
Word count: 72,000

Pitch:

Dodge expects normal enhancements, like extra limbs, enhancements that'll help him win the Game and escape the slums - but his operation isn't normal. He must fight not only to win, but to stay human.


First 150:


The com on my wall buzzes, spitting out the voice of my best friend Tag. “Dodge, you there?”

I don’t want to untangle myself from my bunk’s covers to answer. The heating in our apartment shell is broken for the second time this winter, and besides this bundle of blankets, there’s no way to ward off the chill leaking in around my bedroom window.

Despite my lack of response, Tag keeps talking. “I know you’re there, bud. Sitting in your bunk and trying to ignore me. Don’t think you’re getting away with it – I’m gonna keep talking until you answer.” A pause. “Yes, that was a threat.”

I roll my eyes. Tag’s not kidding. He’ll go on for hours if I don’t shut him up.

I slide out of my bunk, the icy air calling the hair on the back of my neck to attention. As I rub the goosebumps away, my fingers trail over the microchip beneath my hair.

Taking the Path of Most Resistance

It's no fun knowing things for sure.

Okay, as it goes with my blanket statements, let's qualify that somewhat.

Times when I would rather know something for sure:
1) When I'm trying to think of an equation for a physics test.
2) When I'm listening to someone sing and wondering, Erm, what key is this in? (#awkward)
3) When I've received food and am trying to discern whether or not it is, in fact, edible.
4) Not while I'm reading.
5) Not while I'm reading.
6) Not while I'm reading.
7) Repeat steps 4-7.

I've only read a few books where I've reached the end and thought, "Ho hum, I got nothing out of that. Nothing at all." I've felt that way about more than a few movies, though, and usually that's because the movie-maker isn't brave enough to stop holding my hand.

It's something a little terrifying and more than a little exhilarating when you see a film, or read a book, that brings you true surprise. You believe the author really could kill off the main character; you believe the movie-maker really would plumb the absolute depths of misery and drag you along through all the accompanying emotional turmoil. So many books and movies are so safe - there's no real danger. So I love it when I have no clue what the architect of the story is willing to do to the characters, and ipso facto, me, the reader - when I'm scared about how far they might go.

That doesn't necessarily mean the story has to be violent or death-filled, of course. (Though that helps! I unabashedly love gritty angsty violent books. :D) But it does mean that the story has to have a grip on me. It means that, every step of the way, the main character has something to lose, and the reader is terrified that the character will lose just that.

It's part of the reason, I think, why The Hunger Games has such a hold on the eyes. Suzanne Collins is a master of fear, a master of the stakes.

After reading stakes like those in THG, it's hard to cut other books slack for not making me fear for the characters. If, at the beginning, I can predict with any degree of accuracy the course the story takes to get to the height of its danger, I won't be satisfied after reading, because it means the author's taken the safe way out.

Doubt is one of the most powerful tools we have. It's what creates the page-turner compulsion. If the tension never lets up, whether it's a quiet intimate scene or a war scene, we have power over the reader's choice to continue reading or set the book down.

Heh heh... this post makes me sound like a megalomaniac.

Ah well. *shrug*

Anyway. If I love a protagonist, as a general rule, I want them to suffer. I want them to have to battle. I want them to get kicked while they're down and beaten to within an inch of their sanity and I want to be horrified that the author would do that. (Even if it's just figurative abuse.) I want to think, oh, God, how did they get into this and how on earth will they ever get out? It's at the moment when Harry Potter is hopeless and wandless and imprisoned that I love him the most; it's when Peter Parker is outmatched and half-unconscious that I feel like I'm living through the fight with him.

Why am I so sadistic? Well, I'll tell you, gentle reader!

It's so, so satisfying when they claw their way out of that trench. The long haul - the path of most resistance - makes the reader feels accomplished by having survived even the recounting of the tale.

By the end, the main character shouldn't just be a main character. She, he, or it should be a hero, and I don't care what genre you write.

Put it all on the line. Your characters deserve the satisfaction at the end of the saga. And so do your readers.

All the best,
Riley

In Which I Resolve to Not Resolve

Let's face it, dudes. I'm terrible at resolutions. I've kept zero New Year's Resolutions, ever. Regularity just isn't my style. So no resolution here.

However! As of 3:26 PM today, I have officially filled out my LAST COLLEGE APPLICATION. OH YES. OH HELL YES. Plus, it's the new year! So now is a time for celebration. I'm going to leave some of my favorite gifs here, because gifs = party.

Hope your New Year is a joyous one! I'll be back to a semi-normal posting schedule soon, now that college is kaput. Wahey!

All the best,

Riley

The Difference

I usually try to keep my blog posts centered on topics far from my personal life - partially because I don't like splatting my identity across the internet - but I'll approach the Secret Life of Riley a little more closely today. Just so you know. Also, for the purposes of this post, let's say you have a female main character. It'll just simplify things.

So, I'm seventeen. We knew that already. Which means I'm about the age of most protagonists in YA lit, give or take a year or two.

I'd love to talk with you guys about teenage romance, because it's a tough chord to strike. In fact, I'd wager it's THE toughest chord to strike. The giddy flying laughing feeling of brushing your arm against his for the first time? The plunge of the stomach? So hard to recreate with honesty. I don't know for sure if that I-know-I'm-acting-idiotic-but-I-don't-care feeling fades after teenager-land, but either way, recapturing it while doing your MC's personality justice is hard. I know - I've read enough books where the romance element makes me hate the main character, and that's obnoxious. I'm like, I liked you so much, and now you're acting like someone whose brains have been replaced with antifreeze!

I guess I'm especially picky about romance in that I look for flaws more than positives. The more aware of a love interest's flaws a girl MC is, the more appeal the couple has for me, because it shows that the heroine has her feet on the ground, and it feels like she's falling for a real person. Probably one of the reasons I liked Kody Keplinger's THE DUFF so much was that the first thing Bianca notices about Wesley is his faults.

Also, I love to see a slow-burning romance, a la ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS. They get to know each other. Anna and St. Clair become - shock! - friends. Same with the romance element in DIVERGENT. These felt wonderful and natural to me.

There are certain elements of realism to these three examples that I just can't see in many other romances. Yes, love is blind; yes, the MC might think her boyfriend is perfect when she's in that euphoric love-state. But she can't just fall into that state like BOOM. If it does happen quickly, every second had better be mapped out so it doesn't feel sudden. Because I haven't seen a single couple last in high school, when they started with the instant love syndrome.


Let me give you a snapshot into high school dating life, yes? The kids who start dating after three days of knowing each other are laughed at by other kids. They're scorned. People think they have no chance of lasting. And invariably, that hypothesis is correct.


I guess a part of the fictional experience is the desire to see something like that work, and work well. But I've just never seen it done to a degree where it makes me believe it. The relationships I believe in are ones where the characters suffer to get there. They work to achieve union. They don't just waltz into it with the occasional over-convenient plot device; they don't just meet at a party, get together three days later, and get to have a perfect love. That is not how the world I know works.


The love at first date thing isn't infrequent in high school. It happens. The thing is, I think kids all know on some level that it's not something that's made to work. On some level, you can't fully build the structure of a healthy relationship in three days.

Like most things in a teenager's life, this knowledge is hugely influenced by family life, imo. Kids whose parents are married know the hard work that goes into long, lasting relationships. Kids whose parents might not be married anymore know the effect of a love that didn't work out. And that possibility - the possibility of failure - is the one thing that stops me from believing a literary romance. If you don't sell me your characters as a two-person deal - if you don't make me believe that, after I turn the last page, the characters will keep loving each other and having great conversation and growing more and more interested in each other - you've lost me. The love story cannot simply stop at "the end".

Friends - especially best friends - have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly which relationships are good for their buddies. They know which boyfriends are just in passing as opposed to those who'll last a year or more. But it's not just the friends. I think kids even know the difference when it comes to themselves. I do think the teenagers I know can stand back, look objectively at their dating situation to some level, and guess, If I'm going to be honest, this probably won't work in the long run, but it's going to be fun while it lasts. or This is something that could be serious.


Okay, here's my personal example: I have crushes like any girl I know. They come, they hit, they fade.

But there's someone else, one specific guy. He's always in the back of my mind. It's been about two and a half years since I fell for him - and it's almost absurd, but I can pinpoint the exact day when it happened, when I realized the extent of what I felt for him. It's agonizing, in a way, that the whole ordeal has been so distended and unrequited. I can't call it a crush. I don't feel qualified to call it love. It's just there, like an ache.

If I'm going to really believe a romance, I will feel that ache. I will feel need beyond the usual giddiness and happiness and excitement of a crush. I will be reminded of that part of myself that can't let go of him because he's different. Yes, I'm seventeen. Yes, I can be silly and boy-crazy. Yes, so can most girls. But if your main character's love interest is nothing more than face value - if he starts that way and continues to be defined that way - I'm sorry, but there's something fundamentally missing there. Your character should be changed when she considers her love for that boy. She with him should be a different character from she without him - almost a character in and of itself, subtle and nuanced. And if the relationship is a really good one, the reader will like she with him just as much as - or more than - she without.

Just remember how much vulnerability there is in falling, you know? There's fear alongside the exhilaration. Don't topple into the strong-character trap - the trap of the girl who's always funny and witty and snappy and knows just what to do. Real people are not like that. Especially not when faced with the possibility of rejection. And God knows real teenagers are not like that.


Well, uh, that's it for me. I don't really have a fancy closer for this one. I just wanted to remind the world that teenagers aren't without self-awareness.

In other news, this will be my last post for a while. I'm descending back into blog hiatus status, to my chagrin. Just a couple more months of worrying about college ... gah ...

All the best,
Riley

Where Have the Reviews Gone?

You may recall my promise AGES BACK that I was working on a review for Kristin Cashore's GRACELING. Well, I came across this post, and it disturbed me, because I instantly saw the logic in it.

For those of you who aren't inclined to click links and stuff, the basic gist of the article is this: Aspiring authors aren't encouraged by the general publishing industry to post negative reviews of others' work, because a publisher/agent might be less inclined to take you on if you've negatively reviewed something they've published/agented.

I think this is an intriguing topic, and I'm actually torn. On one hand, I'm like, weeell, if I don't have anything nice to say, I might as well not say it, right? But on the other hand, I think it's the job of the book-readin' sphere to stay honest to ourselves and each other. No, public bashing isn't appropriate. I hate reading a disrespectful review of someone's work. But I'll always take someone's points into consideration if they're made in a clear, competent, classy fashion - and better, I'll discover which books might be for me, and which aren't.

Real talk time: The importance of reviews to me goes double for self-published work. The sheer breadth of material we have to sift through in the self-publishing category makes it twice as hard for us to know what's quality. The fact that there are so rarely a large number of reviews makes it thrice as hard. Books with wide release - Divergent, Anna and the French Kiss - they have thousands of reviews and ratings, so to a degree, I can put blind trust in their 4.5 star marks, because I don't have particularly eclectic taste. But a novel someone's releasing by themselves? The small number of reviews only makes it more crucial that positive reviewers explain what they LOVED about it, to a T. And equally important is that negative reviewers explain what turned them off. Word of mouth is so important, and I want to be able to trust all reviews, positive and negative.

At the end of the day, here's my perspective: If I read endless gushing reviews about a book, get excited about it, pay for it, and am let down beyond all belief, I think it's my right as a reader to let other potential buying markets know about the pitfall they too might encounter. And I say might, because my liking or disliking something isn't an end-all-be-all. It's merely another opinion. And the spread of opinions, imo, is what gives reviews their value at all.

I think an aspiring author's omitted opinion is a dangerous thing. I fully understand why an agent might not take on a client who doesn't like the agent's other work. That's a matter of taste - if you don't like the stuff your work partner clearly loves, why should you work together? But a publishing house not wanting to endorse an author who has denounced another book by that publisher ... isn't that a little petty? If it's really just the author's work that matters, why should that author's personal opinion flavor an acquisition?

Dammit, I keep answering my own questions immediately after asking them. Okay, yes, from a business standpoint, it's a bad idea. If this author rises to fame and their bad word on the other book kills that other book's sales, it'll hurt.

But I stand by my opinion. Aspiring authors surely make up a significant percent of the book-buying populace. If our voices are silent - if there aren't any writers talking freely and honestly about others' writing - then we're skewing those ratings. Maybe we're skewing them up by only giving positives; maybe the absence of reviews at all is skewing them down. It doesn't matter which way it goes - it's the notion of skewing in and of itself. We owe it to each other and, in my opinion, the author to put our opinions in the pot. If I'm ever published, I don't want my readers to sugarcoat. I don't want them to senselessly bash me, of course, but yes, if my novel ever turns into a book, I'll probably search out the negative reviews, and try to see where people felt my work fell short. Maybe this is just me. Maybe I'm weirdly masochistic that way. But it's the truth. I think an omission of the truth is a lie, and that truth doesn't need to be vitriolic or disrespectful, but I think it should be there nonetheless.

That said, the purpose of reviewing is to inform people who haven't read a book about the book, yeah? If there's nothing helpful in a review, it isn't a review. It is a rant. I will never review a book and say only bad, useless things. I think everything has a redeemable factor, or else it wouldn't be published, and perhaps that redeemable factor is what would make another reader fall in love. I'd never wash out the good in favor of the bad. Dangit, I would just be honest.

That post up top really hit home. It disturbed me, in a way. Like a bribe, or even a threat: Stay quiet, or there go your chances at publication. My Graceling-review momentum shattered when I read it, but I'll get the thing up soon. There's a book, at least, that I don't have to worry about negatively reviewing.

What do you guys think? Please do tell me your thoughts - I'm really curious.

All the best,
Riley

Regular Writing

Yesterday, I received a question on my last post pertaining to whether I write every day (from Aya, who is funny and cool and whom you should check out).

My answer: YES, I write every day. I believe everyone should write daily, and here's why:

Momentum.

During cross country (and, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm an awful runner, but hey, roll with it), the coaches always told us not to stop running. It just makes it harder to start again. And okay, no, running isn't writing. (One is enjoyable.) But to me, the concept seems essentially the same. If your wheels grind to a halt, they're going to take a certain amount of energy to start again.

Even if you spend your writing hiatus thinking like a writer - "Oh, look, there's a plot idea!" you may say, or "The way she looks at the world is just perfect for my MC's sister!" - the exercise isn't there. You're not taking things from your brain and spilling them onto paper.

And okay, sometimes the words will spill slowly. Sometimes you may only have two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to spill them. But I think two minutes and thirty-seven seconds is more than enough to consider some important things: settling into the voice of your character; picking up where you left off and making it a smooth transition into the next sentence; pushing toward the next objective and holding the stakes tight with tension. Yes, I believe we can do those things in 2:37. I believe we can do them in one sentence.


Then, of course, I have a whole host of reasons which may only pertain to me. I feel like I'm losing a grip on the immediate direction the plot is headed if I go a day without. I feel like I've wasted my 24 precious hours if I go a day without. I feel like my characters will miss me if I go a day without (yeah... there's probably medication for that or something). I feel like I'm taking a step backward if I go a day without. And, the simplest - I can't go a day without.


How about you? Are you a daily writer?

All the best,
Riley