YA Author Stacey Kade

I get emails every once in awhile asking about writing advice. As with anything writing-related, every experience is different and everyone has their own way of doing things, but I thought I’d write about what has helped me. Maybe you’ll find it helpful or maybe it’ll be one more method to check off your list before trying something else. And that’s okay, too–remember, there really is no one way to write a book (h/t once again to Ally Carter for that phrase)!

So, this week, it’s about process. I don’t know how it works for everyone else, but writing for me is often like watching a little movie in my head. (And I LOVE that!) However, it’s like a movie in pieces, out of order and making no sense. At least in the beginning.

When I first started writing, I’d get so excited about that first “scene” I saw in my head, and I’d sit down right away and start writing. The trouble was, I quickly found, I had no context for what was going on and I didn’t know how to continue beyond that scene.

Imagine walking into a darkened theater where a movie is already playing. You have no idea how long the movie has been going on, only that everyone else inside the theater is already settled and watching in riveted silence. On the screen, a girl is running through the dark woods. By the light of the full moon, you can see she’s been crying, her cheek is bruised and her lip is split and bloody. She’s carrying a big, antique-looking metal box with a heavy lock on the front. It’s awkward and causes her to stumble more than once. She’d definitely be moving faster if she ditched the box, but she doesn’t. Even when she glances back over her shoulder at a shadowy figure in the darkened woods and it’s clear she’s being chased and she’s terrified.

Great. Except…what happens next? Well, the problem for me was that there were just too many possibilities and I had no idea which one was the “right” one, in that it would allow the story to progress. Mainly this was because I had no idea what I was seeing or what it meant. Was getting this box the final step at the end of the story? Or are we just kicking things off by stealing this box? And what’s in it that is so important to this girl? We know it’s important because she doesn’t abandon it to get away. Who is she? Who is chasing her?

Does she get caught here and have to prove her mettle by taking on whatever is chasing her? Does she escape cleanly…for now? Does she open the box and hide whatever is inside from whoever or whatever is chasing her? Any of these possibilities are, well, possible! It depends on where we are in the story, who these characters are, and what they are trying to accomplish.

The first thing I do is jot down all the possibilities of what the next scene might be, just so I don’t forget what I was originally thinking. Then I go back to that little snippet of film in my head, and I slow it down so I can note all the details, knowing that some may change or go away as I find my way through this. But I don’t know for sure what’s important at this stage, so I write down everything I can see and treat the details as clues.

How old is the girl? What does she look like? What is she wearing? Regular clothes probably mean a contemporary setting, even though the box is old-fashioned looking. Is she scared simply of being caught? Or is she more frightened about what will happen if the person/thing chasing her gets a hold of the box and its contents?

I write down everything I know (based on what I’m seeing) and then it’s time for a little context. We know this isn’t the first thing that happened to this girl in the story because she had to get to the woods and find the box and acquire those injuries somehow. Now, for the sake of interest, we could start the story with this chase and then flashback to when the story starts, but we still need to know what happened and in what order for HER. No matter how we read her story, to her, it happened in regular linear time. We need to have that timeline, even if we don’t write or present the story in that order.

So I take some notes on what might have happened immediately before this moment.

(Also, throughout this process, I continue to try to push the film forward or run it back to see if more scenes appear, which they usually do but almost always out of order. I don’t get the next scene; I get the second to last scene or something near the middle. That’s okay. I just write it down, knowing that I’ll use it eventually.)

Now…this is the point at which I’d often get stuck. There’s only so much that film can tell you. TV and movies, in that respect, are more limited. You only know what a character is thinking if the character tells you. In books, that’s not the case. So, I start getting to know the characters. In the case of our girl being chased, I have already two characters: a protagonist (the girl) and an antagonist (whoever is chasing her). Yeah, I want to know what their favorite breakfast cereal is and their most humiliating moment, but even more than that, I need to know the following things:

–WHO are they?
Is the girl in the woods a college student or in high school? Is she an orphan or the daughter of a wealthy family? Is keeping this box safe the first thing she’s ever fought for or is she a seasoned warrior (like Buffy)? Who is chasing her? I haven’t seen them yet in the movie, so I can’t draw too many conclusions about them yet.

–WHAT do they want?
In this case, it’s pretty clear they both want the box or, more likely, whatever is in it. The girl and her pursuer are likely going to spend the story trying to acquire and then KEEP the box from the other, for their own reasons.

–WHY do they want what they want?
They each want the box. Why? Well, my guess is that depends on what’s IN the box. And I don’t know yet what that is. I’m going to need to do some exploring on that and soon because my story is going to hang on the value of that box and why it’s important. But even without knowing what’s inside of the box, I can say that most likely the girl is trying to do something “good” with the box. She’s trying to keep someone else from destroying the world or she wants to use to help someone she loves.

Perhaps someone has taken a person she loves as a hostage until she delivers the box, and she’s the only one who can touch the box safely because of a curse on it. This girl, descended from the witch who cursed it, has immunity. But that wouldn’t explain why she’s being chased. If someone has blackmailed her into getting the box, they wouldn’t be chasing her. So either that’s not the scenario or the person chasing her is not the blackmailer. Perhaps it is someone else who wants the box or maybe it’s someone charged with the responsibility of guarding the box.

–WHY CAN’T they have what they want right now?
Well, again, that depends on why they’re doing what they’re doing. The girl can get the box because she’s immune to the curse, but if she delivers the box to save her loved one, she knows the blackmailers will use it to do something bad. The blackmailers, assuming we go with this story idea, can’t touch the box because of the curse.

It’s important to recognize here that you need to know what your villains are up to and why. They are the heroes of their own story. They have a reason for what they’re doing and they don’t think of themselves as evil. On the contrary, in their minds, they are the misunderstood saviors of the world. Even if, in this case, they are planning to use the box to wipe out the entire world, they will justify it by saying there is so much pain and suffering in life today, that they just want everyone to be at peace. You see?

(Note: the above questions come from Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon, a fabulous book that I highly recommend. Buy it from the publisher, though, not from Amazon. It’s waaay cheaper from the publisher.)

So, I do a lot of pre-writing–taking notes, getting to know characters and exploring possibilities–before I actually start writing the story. That being said, I ALWAYS take notes on scenes that appear or bits of dialogue, even if I don’t know yet where they fit or how to use them. They’re showing up in my head for a reason, and I don’t want to forget/lose them. I carry a notebook with me always for this purpose.

Once I’ve got most of these questions answered, the blank spots filled in, I feel like I’m on solid ground…and ready to jump off the cliff into writing. You never know what will happen once you start writing; it’s a bit of a free-fall. But with my notes, I feel like I have a rough idea of the destination and the conditions that will affect my trip. If that makes sense.

And if that all sounds like a lot of work, in addition to the actual writing of the book, you’re right. Writing, to me, is very much like the whole iceberg analogy. Only small percentage of all the work shows up on the final page. Everything is else is beneath the surface but still necessary for that bit to rise to the top.

But as I said in the beginning, what I’ve talked about here may or may not make sense for how you write. That’s okay! There are lots of different ways to write, and we’re all searching for new ways to improve and/or make things easier.

Thoughts? Questions? Got a better way? Share it here!

When I started thinking about writing G&G, I didn’t have a name for the ghost girl who’d been killed by the bus. Actually, I didn’t have a full name for anyone. I only knew Killian was Killian and that that was his last name. I didn’t know his first name was Will for a LONG time.

But back to Alona (much like she’d prefer it)…I knew what she was mostly like: dead, bitchy, sarcastic, cheerleader. But I also knew she had vulnerabilities she was not willing to reveal and that much of what people did not like about her was a form of her protecting herself. (By the way, I also did not know what Alona’s secret was when I started writing, only that she had one. And my initial guess? Totally wrong.)

In my mind, she is strong, just perhaps not in the way most of us think of it (strength=heroic=nice). She has that not-so-nice edge to her as well. Defense as well as offense, you know?

So, I needed a name that would fit her. I have a baby name book and websites I peruse for this exact purpose. I also usually look up the names that were most popular in the year a character was born so I’m not naming him or her something that is out of date or wildly unpopular (unless there’s a reason for that).

But none of those methods worked for me this time. All the names I could find sounded too typical, cliched, one-dimensional. I wanted her name to convey beauty, strength and the isolation that she feels–not that she would ever admit that.

Now, this would have been back in late 2005, early 2006 when I was just starting to think about writing this book. I wouldn’t actually start writing it until February 2007. But it was simmering in the back of my brain.

At or around that same time, I would have been watching Veronica Mars, one of the BEST shows on television in the last decade. Not kidding. At some point, I noticed that the character of Meg Manning, one of the few people in Neptune still nice to the title character AND a member of the Spirit Squad, was played by an actress named Alona Tal. (I had not started watching Supernatural at that point, believe it or not, so I never saw her as Jo until just this year.)

I liked how she played Meg, showing equal parts vulnerability and strength (the same with Jo, for that matter, although Meg was not nearly as kickass as Jo) and that reminded me of this girl I had yet to name. (I swear to you, it did not occur to me until much later how close “Alona” is to “Alone,” which is perfect for who Alona Dare is.)

So, Alona Dare is named for Alona Tal. And if you haven’t watched Veronica Mars, get thee to your Netflix Queue and order up!

I received the final cover for Queen of the Dead and permission to post it. I really love it and am so excited to share it with you guys!

Without further ado:

If you’ve seen the previous version, you’ll note that the main difference is in Will’s expression. He looks just a little bit more annoyed, which delights me. Though his life is certainly better than it was before, Alona still drives him crazy on a regular basis. That’s just part of who they are together. And I think this image reflects that better.

We still have the gorgeous diner set up with all the yummy desserts and the soft colors. Alona’s expression is still that wicked “I’m up to no good, and you totally know it” look. And Will is showing just a tad more of the “FML” attitude that I imagine he feels on a fairly regular basis when he’s caught up in one of Alona’s schemes.

Also, aren’t the models both so gorgeous? They do such a great job representing Alona and Will. I love it!

I’ve been looking for a topic to blog about and, coincidentally, I’ve gotten a few emails lately asking me about how I found my publisher, how the process works, how long did it take me to get published, etc. (Also, a couple of you suggested this as a topic when I asked–thank you for that. I’m terrible at figuring out post topics!)

So, here we go…

Wait. Before I start this, I have to say that this is just MY experience. Yours may be totally different. Just as there is no one way to write a book (tip of the hat to Ally Carter for that Twitter phrase), there is also no one way to publication. (The negatives in that sentence make my brain hurt, but I think you know what I mean.)

Okay…

What’s interesting to me is that if you look just at my YA experience, it all seems to have happened rather quickly. I wrote The Ghost and the Goth (which is the original title, by the way. I got to keep it!) from February to May in 2007. It was the first young adult novel I’d ever written, but I’d gotten back into reading YA several years before and LOVED how it had changed from when I was that age. (Such variety and freshness and truth-telling in these stories, so exciting!)

As some of you probably know, I have a sister who is thirteen years younger than me. She was graduating from high school in the spring of 2007. I really wanted to write about this YA idea I had about a bitchy dead girl ghost and the outcast guy who can see her, but I was scared to because it was so far outside of what I’d been writing. My motivation, then, became I knew how much my sister enjoyed reading YA and wouldn’t it be fun to give this story to her? Also, maybe if, as I went along writing it, I felt it was holding up well enough, I would try to get it published.

I had a blast writing G&G. Just had so much fun with it. And that was a wonderful lesson to gain from writing this book. I’d never realized it could be that much fun. I actually experienced moments of glee while writing. (This should have been a big clue to me that maybe I’d found what I should have been writing all along.)

Though it wasn’t without its hardships as well. I got about 3/4 of the way through the story and stopped because I didn’t know how to finish it. I’d opened up doors and story threads that I didn’t know how to close off. That is something I continue to struggle with as a writer. I love creating the problems, letting my characters make a mess of things, digging themselves in deeper, sometimes too much so. I get too many things going on at once and then they can’t get out…or the path to getting out is so convoluted, it can’t be followed. I’m still working on getting better at that!

At any rate, I had other writing projects going on at the moment, so G&G got shuffled to the side, temporarily.

I HAD to finish revisions to G&G in about a month or month and a half in early 2008, when a request for a full manuscript came in from the wonderful literary agent who would become MY wonderful literary agent, Laura Bradford. Uh, yeah. Don’t do what I did and query on a project that isn’t quite finished because then you have that awful “quick, hurry up and get it done, but wait, don’t screw it up because this is a big opportunity” pressure that I experienced. I lived on Dr. Pepper and Reeses’ Peanut Butter eggs for quick sugar and caffeine highs to keep pushing those revisions forward. I was, at the time, working full-time in an office and writing at night…and in the morning…and over lunch.

Laura signed me in April 2008, and we had an offer from Hyperion at the end of June 2008. Amazingly fast! Also, I got the most awesome, spectacularly fun, and brilliant editor–Christian Trimmer–in the deal. Yea!

So…just a little over a year from the first word written to having a contract. Fast and simple, right?

That would be a very big fat NO, actually.

See, I’d been writing pretty steadily since graduating from college. I’d started my first book back in 1998 and finished in 2000. That book will be one that never ever sees the light of day, but it taught me a lot. I wrote my second book in 2001 and then struggled with revisions for TWO years because I knew something was wrong with it, but I didn’t know what. The trouble was that everything I’d learned about writing, I’d learned from a couple of creative writing classes and reading lots and lots of books. Both of those are an excellent start for a writing education but definitely not enough. Not even close.

I started researching writing: other people’s techniques, what worked for them, what didn’t. I stumbled across Christopher Vogler’s screenwriting book, “The Writer’s Journey,” which provided the equivalent of a light bulb over my head.

I revised my book and started querying agents in 2003. Lots and lots of rejection followed. I eventually found a small, independent press that was willing to publish my book, the first in a series. Hurrah! They were lovely people, just starting up their own press, and I would be their first release.

It was all smashing and wonderful…for about a year. Then, my publisher contacted me and let me know that the financials just weren’t there for them to continue in this business. I was disappointed (crushed, actually), but understood. They had been very good to me and I had no complaints about the way I’d been treated, which is not always the case in situations like these.

So, then I had to start the querying process all over again. This time, though, I had the advantage of having learned a lot from my first go-around. I’d attended the Romantic Times Booklovers convention, met agents and other authors, and best of all, my mentor and friend, Linnea Sinclair. (She deserves a blog post entirely devoted to who she is, the amazing inspiration and help she has been, and how grateful I am, but the short version is I could not have done this without her. Truly.)

Despite my experience and best efforts, I still, however, could not find representation with an agent. I eventually landed at a supportive independent press willing to take on my previously published book, its sequel, and a new mystery I’d written that I LOVED.

I’m debating with myself now, writing and erasing lines, about how to continue this post. I could finish it as simply as, “And then I started writing G&G, and the rest is history,” but that’s not quite true. If I’m being honest, I’m worried I’m going to get flak for the following paragraphs, but oh, hell, it’s my story and I think you should have the truth as I see it.

The truth is, I wanted to have an agent. I wanted to see my book on the shelves in Borders and Barnes and Noble. I wanted, more than anything, to be a full-time writer. But it is very difficult (though not impossible, as there are examples of those who have done so) to accomplish those last two goals without a larger, NY-based publisher. Larger companies have a wider reach, the means and systems in place for better distribution. And I wanted that for G&G…if it was at all possible.

When I finished G&G, I could have stayed within the small press/independent publishing realm. I had the contacts, the comfort level and the confidence to do so. But I had to choose between the safety of what I knew and the risk of going after what I really wanted. There was absolutely nothing wrong with staying put, except that it wasn’t what I really wanted.

So, I took a chance. I started querying again, getting rejected AGAIN…and what do you know? This time, it worked. I found an agent who loved the book I’d written, and my book found a home with the amazing people at Hyperion.

And all of this happened approximately TEN YEARS after I’d started writing with the intent to be published. (Note: Remember what I said. This is just how it worked for me. Nothing says it will take anyone else this long!)

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that writing, like many, many other things, is often more about persistence than anything else. There are always going to be ups and downs, highs and lows, amazing accomplishments and obstacles that you think you’re never going to get past. But refusing to give up, pushing yourself to keep going and keep learning, and holding tight to your dream–that’s the really important stuff.

So, that’s my publishing story. I know I’m throwing around lots of terms (literary agents, querying, etc.) Let me know if you have questions.