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2013 IA SCBWI Conference-Part II

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Louise650

First Pages practice
On the pitcher’s mound: Louise Aamodt

If you’re a children’s book writer, one of the best ways to hone your craft is to attend your regional Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) conferences. For instance: the 2013 Iowa SCBWI Conference offered a variety of hands-on manuscript development opportunities:

  • Roundtable Peer Critiques
  • First Page Readings
  • Manuscript Reviews

Roundtable Peer Critiques

Conference peer reviews provide fresh, unbiased feedback for our work-in-progress. Also, they widen our circle of writing friends, broaden our view of the world, and challenge us to write at a higher level.

For the peer critiques Iowa SCBWI Assistant Regional Advisor Lisa Morlock divided the manuscripts by genre, then she organized us into groups of four or five. Lisa emailed the manuscripts to each pertaining group member so we could review and print critiques (or bring them in e-form) before the conference.

Accomplished author Sharelle Byars Moranville facilitated my group, which consisted of three other chapter book and middle grade novelists. To top off the great advice we received from one another, she suggested we give all characters a crucible moment;  deliver the empathy-building essence of our protagonists; and strategically plan for pivotal stepping moments at the quarter point, the mid point, and the three-quarter point of our manuscripts before tying it up with that satisfying ending.

Elevator pitch practice Up to bat: Alicia Schwab

Elevator pitch practice
Up to bat: Alicia Schwab

First Page Readings

Michelle Poploff, Vice President and Executive Director of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, led “Finding Your Voice”, a session where First Page participants received a wealth of feedback in minutes. Participant names were randomly drawn. They read the first 500 words of their manuscripts. After each reading, attendees in the audience provided anonymous  comments on notecards.

In our motel room the night before, my roommates and I took turns rehearsing and creating one-line elevator pitch synopses.  Not only did the pitch-writing exercise equip all four of us to create more impactful queries; but the extra preparation paid off in the performances. When my roommates names were drawn, they delivered self-assured readings preceded by convincing pitches.

Elise Hylden Up to bat

Elise Parsley up to bat, critiquing the pitch

Manuscript Critiques

Face-to-face manuscript critiques provided the best opportunity to have our most polished, unpublished manuscript critiqued by an editor, agent, or published author. We submitted our manuscripts three to four weeks prior to the conference to allow ample time for our advisor to review and write comments; then we received a ten-minute appointment for them to tell us what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve our work.

Thanks to Joanna Cardenas, Assistant Editor for Viking Children’s Books, for reviewing my manuscript. She devoted an impressive amount of thoughtful consideration, offering suggestions on character development, plot and structure, language and diction, voice, and marketability. Her advice differed substantially from input I had received from Barry Goldblatt, founder of BG Literary, at the 2013 Minnesota Conference. However, their foundational goals remained the same: to increase my protagonist’s likeability, which would increase the appeal of my manuscript, which would increase its chances of being published. I’m grateful to them both.

Next week I’ll share more 2013 IA Conference wisdom from Michelle Poploff; Allison Remcheck, Assistant Literary Agent of Rosemary Stimola Literary Studio; Joanna Cardenas; and Jennifer Black Reinhardt. See you then!

2013 Iowa SCBWI Conference Photos

Now what?

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Aruthur Rackham's illustration from GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS from the Project Gutenberg archives.

Aruthur Rackham’s illustration from GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS from the Project Gutenberg archives.

So, you’ve subjected your manuscript to writers’ conference reviews.

  • Papa Editor says your manuscript is too soft/lame/dull.
  • Mama Agent says it is too hard/scary/implausible.
  • And your Baby Peer Group says it is just right, except for a few hundred nagging flaws.

Now what?

  • Sleep until noon.
  • Eat bon-bons.
  • Complain on Facebook that editors, agents, and other writers don’t know their succotash from Shinola.

Just kidding!

Post manuscript review steps

1. Detach

  • Know that your reason for living is not dependent on those 600/9000/48,000 words.
  • To avoid burn out and increase objectivity, let the project rest in a drawer for two weeks or more.
  • Start another project. Many successful authors juggle several manuscripts at once. Epiphanies often occur while focusing on something else.

2. Look for middle ground

Note opposing revision suggestions. You can’t incorporate both, so see if the middle ground makes sense.

For instance, one manuscript reviewer advised that I intensify a storm scene to make it scarier. The next suggested that volatile weather may be too scary for children.

Because of favorable input received earlier from a test group, I plan to meet in the middle and leave the storm as is. If I didn’t feel confident and couldn’t decide which advice was best, I would save my original manuscript, rename and rewrite it  the two suggested ways, and select the best.

Writing exercises are never wasted.

3. Note common threads

Listen and check your notes for common threads of advice. This indicates a weak point. A common thread regarding my aforementioned manuscript is a preference for a supporting character over the protagonist.

To improve the manuscript according to this feedback, I can:

  • change my protagonist to make him/her stand out.
  • advance the supporting character to the rank of protagonist, knowing this may change the genre, theme, and story.
  • create an entirely new protagonist.

What critique advice have you heard more than once?

4. Note common sense

An editor noticed a scene where I had gotten sidetracked. I tend to be a bit attention deficit. SQUIRREL! To compensate for the shortcomings in my personality, I plan to change my writing process. It’s dangerous for someone like me to just write and hope it takes me to a logical place. ICE CREAM! I will need an outline to keep me on track. Common sense will save me from ending up in an entirely different story and writing ten times more material than I need.

What common sense advice speaks to you?

5. Incorporate the best advice

Save your manuscript under a new name and incorporate the common thread and common sense advice. If others, especially the professionals, agree that chapters, phrases, and words do not carry your story forward cut or change them.

You can go back to the original if you don’t like what you get. But I’m guessing you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

6. Test your manuscript

Revise, then test your manuscript with readers of the age group you are targeting. In extreme critique instances, ask your test group to select between the two different revisions and the original. If the pieces are too long, offer three different synopses for comparison.

My manuscript was originally written without a storm. The youngest member of my test group suggested one. Post-revision, the test group says the story is way cooler with a storm and it’s just the right amount of scary.

Trust your target audience. They’re the best indicator of the marketability of your story.

7. Start again (Back to Baby Peer Group, Mama Agent, and Papa Editor)

At the October 2013 Iowa SCBWI conference, a participant received a submission request from a major publishing house director. This friend started her manuscript over a decade ago.

“She’s arrived!” you say?

Not yet. She’ll follow the post-manuscript-review steps, then she’ll submit her manuscript.

I can’t wait to tell you how the story ends.

Marathon

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THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE, written by Lord Dunsany. Artwork by Milo Winter. This image by THE AESOP FOR CHILDREN is a public domain image.

Writing a book is a marathon–not a sprint. So much else in life is an all-out race, this slow-and-not-so-sure reality makes most book writers feel judged for not producing immediate results.

Our cultural urgency to succeed and do it now deals writers an undue amount of shame and guilt. We’re rarely there on time to meet and greet the people  prematurely gathering at the finish line.

A 90-year-old relative said to me, “People ask me what you do with all of your time. I told them, ‘I have no idea.'”

Another relative, a 23-year-old, said, “What will you do while I take my nap?”

I said, “I’ll work on my book.”

A couple of hours later, she awoke and stretched. “So, are you done with your book?”

Another friend said, “Oh, children’s books.Those are easy to pump out, aren’t they? So-and-so wrote a children’s book. If he can do it anyone can.”

That’s what I used to think.

Instant success expectations are why there are more people who want to write books than books. Writing is humbling. And if enough people think you’re taking too long or doubt you can finish the marathon, you can start to doubt it yourself.

Me? I’m sticking with the process because I know how the story ends. The tortoise wins the race–maybe skinny and battle-scarred by the sacrifice–but she/he crosses the finish line.

The pleasing ending of the Hare and the Tortoise was possible because the tortoise was at home (a state of being for us/a physical place for tortoises) doing what he/she was designed to do, yet unafraid to stick his/her head out and plod forward under the protective thick shell of faith, hope, and focus.

Cutting Words

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Editing is an excruciating process, especially when it involves the extraction of beloved words. For writers, words are our progeny. It’s painful to part with them. Yet, we remove favored words all of the time, as an act of sacrificial love for our manuscripts and mercy for readers everywhere.

Fortunately, I just thought of a way to save my words AND make incomplete manuscripts happy. I opened a home for orphaned words, lines, and scenes today. I’m making excess words available for adoption!

This is my first foundling, cut from my children’s chapter book manuscript:

While Gramma helped Papa catch the tumbling toys, I chased a crazy ping pong ball–ping, ping, ping–until it plopped into the kitty litter–plip. I decided to leave it. Maybe Papa and Gramma would think the cat laid an egg.

Disclaimer: I didn’t say all word orphans were appealing. But I’m holding onto the hope that there’s a manuscript out there that’ll think this is the cutest word baby ever.