Young Adult and children's books are a force to be reckoned with in the UK economy.
"Children’s represented a record 24% of the print market in 2014, and for the first time the sector’s full-year value sales eclipsed those of BookScan’s Adult Fiction category"
said The Bookseller's review of the 2014 market. This should be good news for all UK children's authors, but it's the UKYA authors in particular I want to focus on here.
"2015 will be OUR year!"
If I heard that said once, I heard it twenty times last Monday night, at #DrinkYA - a party to celebrate the shortlist for the newly fledged
YA Book Prize, sponsored and supported by The Bookseller and others including (Movellas, The Reading Agency and World Book Day, and organised by Anna James (
@acaseforbooks) along with the fab Bookseller team, the indefatigable Jim Dean (
@yayeahyeah blog) and Louie Stowell (
@louiestowell). It wasn't the authors there who were saying it, though. It was the bloggers, and in particular the bloggers passionate about UKYA, and determined that books coming out of Great Britain and Ireland should be as big as those in the currently US-dominated market.
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Jim Dean and Abi
Elphinstone at
#DrinkYA |
It is an indisputable truth that US authors currently lead the YA market. John Green, Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins - all have had massive bestsellers, and not only due to the films that have been made out of their books. Why shouldn't UKYA authors have the same success? It's a tricky one. For a start, the UK and Ireland fit into the state of Texas not once, but twice. The US market is huge from a population point of view. They just sell a vaster quantity of books there. However, I firmly believe we can compete.
Last year we had YALC, organised by our brilliant Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman. It was a stonking success. This year, hopefully, there will be another YALC. But first there will be the YA Book Prize.
The shortlist is out, with eleven UKYA authors on it (one of the shortlisted titles, Lobsters was jointly written by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison). What struck me about the list was how diverse it was in subject matter and writing style. There is modern myth (
A Song for Ella Gray), fantasy witches (
Half Bad), family dysfunction (
Salvage), ghostly horror (
Say Her Name), contemporary teen issues (
Trouble, Goose, Lobsters, Finding a Voice), dystopia (
Only Ever Yours) and thriller (
The Ghosts of Heaven).
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James Dawson and
Non Pratt at
#DrinkYA |
Also, although there are a couple of more well-known names on the list, there are some debuts too, and some who deserve to be better-known than they currently are. This can only be a good thing. The YA Book Prize is a bold initiative, arising from a strong feeling that it was time to celebrate the wonderful homegrown authors we have, to promote them, and to let everyone know that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of the rest of the world in terms of quality, and we should all be applauding that.
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Book bags at
#DrinkYA |
Those bloggers who were at #DrinksYA (and many more who weren't) do an amazing job in helping to get the word out to readers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We need to appreciate their dedication, their passion, and the time they give to writing about (or filming) pieces about what they love and sharing it. There is a HUGE book buying community out there - we know that more than ever now - and the bloggers and vloggers are doing more than their bit to fuel its appetite. I am constantly amazed and heartened by the amount of book chat there is both on Twitter and Tumblr (just look up 'booklr' on the latter, and join in the frequent #UKYAchat, #YAie and #UKMGchat events on the former). There are forums too, and the latest -
Bookish Peeps - is a wonderful community (just created by blogger Jesse Owen of
Books 4 Teens), all enthusing about books and reading.
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Anna James of
The Bookseller at
#DrinkYA
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In the end, if 2015
IS going to be our year as readers and writers of UKYA, we have to engage, be passionate, talk about the books we love (and yes, put up positive reviews on the dreaded Amazon and Goodreads), and generally support events like YALC and the YA Book Prize. 'Proselytize' and 'Evangelize' are not two of my favourite words. However, I am prepared to be both a proselytizer and an evangelist on behalf of getting UKYA the worldwide attention it deserves. How about you?
"rippingly funny…offers food for thought on everything from absentee parenting to the mistreatment of animals (even immortal ones)." Publishers Weekly US starred review
Coming in May 2015 from Orchard, Cleo (UKYA paranormal/historical novel about the teenage Cleopatra VII)
Publishers want lots of ‘stuff’ from authors now. Not just the book, but lots of other stuff. Content, it’s called, for online things.
One of the bits of content I’ve given my publishers recently is a file of deleted scenes, from my new(ish) teen thriller
Mind Blind.
It wasn’t hard for me to find half a dozen deleted scenes, because I delete lots from my manuscripts as I rewrite and redraft. It’s not unusual for me to reduce the length of a book by 20,000 words or more between first draft and final publication. Which sounds very inefficient – wouldn’t I be better just writing shorter books in the first place?
But I’m not a planner and plotter. I discover the story as I write, as I follow the characters on their journey, and that means diversions and doubling back. I never deliberately write anything that I know is irrelevant at the time, every word helps me find out about the characters, their reactions to problems and my own feelings about the story. But once I reach the end and get a sense of the main thrust of the story, it’s usually clear that I've regularly wandered off the narrative path, and that some scenes are now unnecessary. They may have been necessary to get me to the end, but they’re not necessary to get the reader to the end. So I'm ruthless in slashing them out. I reckon that if you can slice out a scene without it seriously affecting the rest of the story, it probably wasn’t that important.
And in a thriller like MindBlind, where it’s very important to keep the pace up and the pages turning, I also removed scenes or parts of scenes because they slowed the story down too much. (
Here’s an example of one.)
And sometimes I cut a scene, not because it’s slowing the story down or because it’s an unnecessary diversion, but because I come up with a stronger idea once I know the story and characters better. However, the original scene is still part of the way I got to know the character, so it’s part of my history with them.
Here’s an example of that – it’s the first scene I ever wrote about Ciaran Bain, the hero (anti-hero) of the book. It’s not in the book, but it’s still the place I first met him!
Of course, it’s misleading to suggest that all this slashing and slicing is my idea. Quite a lot of it is, but some of it is in response to gentle prompts from my wonderful editor.
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| a mountain of many Mind Blind manuscripts |
So, I have no problem removing large chunks of my first draft or even my fourteenth draft, because as I’m writing, I know that I’m just discovering the story, not finding the perfect way of telling it first time around. And I know that it takes a lot of work to make that original mess of scribbled ideas into a book.
But having taken all this stuff out, why on earth would I want to show it to anyone? These deleted scenes have often been removed quite early in the process, so they’re not that polished (why would I polish them, once I’ve deleted them?) So it does feel quite weird and slightly uncomfortable, revealing these unfinished bits of my creative process to the public gaze.
Even if these are scenes that I took out for plot or pace reasons, rather than pieces of writing I don’t like, they are still parts of the story that didn’t make it into the book. So is it a bit of a risk to show less than perfect examples of your writing to the world? And why on earth do it?
The first reason is the pragmatic one of feeding the voracious social media monster. (This is not a particularly good reason.)
But I wonder if a much better reason is that realising how much an author cuts from their early drafts can be useful, especially for young writers. It’s a very practical way to show that published writers don’t get it right all the time, that our first drafts are just the start of the process and that we have to work at them, slash at them, perhaps radically change them, to get them into shape. Deleted scenes are perhaps the online version of showing manuscripts covered in lots of scribbles and scorings out to groups of kids at author visits. ‘Look, I don’t get it right first time, so you don’t have to either. Just write, and see what happens!’
So, while I was wincing and cringing this week as yet another deleted scene appeared on Tumblr, I wondered:
How much do other writers delete?
Are other writers happy to let the world see the bits they sliced out?
And do readers learn anything about the writing process from deleted scenes?
Lari Don is the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
I was invited to take part in Loughborough University’s 2nd Literary Salon by Kerry Featherstone, lecturer in English. Industry professionals were invited: Walker Books and the literary agents from DKW, and another author – Maxine Linnell. The subject of the Salon was: Writing YA Fiction. We were each invited to speak, followed by a Q and A session, and, at the end of the evening, there was a Round Table. The audience comprised students, lecturers, authors and anyone in the local area interested in Teen/YA fiction. There was a great turn out and an interested and involved audience, with lots of discussions.
My talk focussed on the realities, good and bad, of being a children’s writer in the modern world, what an average advance might be, royalties, the changes in the publishing industry, and my experiences of being a teen/YA writer. I tried to give a balanced view on how difficult it is to make a living from writing, how a children’s writer today has to wear very many hats, know the industry and know how it works, while not neglecting the most important aspect of being an author: writing a book. I was a little surprised by how many students of creative writing were unaware of the realities of being a children’s writer.
I hope I didn’t put them off wanting to be writers!
The round table discussions focussed on various issues, including age banding in children’s books, the changing reading habits of children and teenagers, and diversity in children’s books. Bali Rai joined the round table and talked about how he and Malorie Blackman have been discussing the lack of diversity in children’s literature for many years, and how little has changed in that time. I’ve blogged about diversity in Teen/YA lit here on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure here and on The Edge Blog here, and for Teen Librarian Monthly here. Reading David Thorpe’s interesting post on yesterday’s blog, made me wonder about the diversity in the ethnicity of the children who had entered the 500 word story writing competition where 118,632 entries were received.
The Literary Salon was a very good event for students who were interested in pursuing a career in writing. They got to meet a publisher, agents and writers, and to put questions to them. It was the kind of event I would have loved to have gone to when I first started writing and knew so little about the publishing world.
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| Book Trailer for The Long Weekend |
Savita Kalhan's website
hereSavita on Twitter
here
For both the reader and the writer, endings are extremely powerful things. I know I feel like celebrating when I’ve typed the words THE END on a manuscript, even though I’m fully aware that in the life of a finished manuscript the hard work has only just begun. Which type of ending did I go for? Fairy Tale, Hollywood, Bollywood or Hopeless?
Fairy tale endings represent the typical ‘happily ever after’ ending, as in the Hansel and Gretel variety.
Hollywood endings are much more sugary, (sometimes sickly) sweet happily ever after endings with everyone riding off into the sunset.
Bollywood endings are happy endings too, but tempered by the extreme tragedies that have taken place; and they’re happy because everyone, who hasn’t died, is reunited at the end.
Hopeless endings are few and far between, and rarely have a place in children’s literature.
I don’t tend to write light humorous stories, oh, okay, I’ll be honest – my writing is actually quite dark. The Long Weekend was a story of two boys who are abducted after school. It’s labelled by the publishers as ‘not suitable for younger readers’ without stating a specific age on the back of the book. The boys are eleven years old, so you might think it was suitable for perhaps ten year olds to read. Well, it might be for a few. It’s the kind of book that cannot have a hopeless ending because it is for kids and because of what happens in the book. My agent actually asked me to write an epilogue because she was of the opinion that you could not end a children’s book, particularly a book like The Long Weekend, without some element of hope for the reader to take away at the end. I think she was right.
When I read books as a child ...and they lived happily ever after, was an ending I expected. I read lots of fairy tales from all across the world and they always ended like this too, no matter what terrible things had befallen the main characters. Years later when I read books to my young son, little had changed. They nearly all had happy endings. I remember once finding a book in the library that didn’t end happily and reading it to him. When we reached the end, he was really angry at the writer for not writing a proper ending. He’s a teenager now and although he still reads teen/YA fiction, he also reads adult books. I asked him about a book he read recently – Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower, and he said, “It’s full of broken dreams,” but it’s really good. I haven’t read it yet, but I guess its ending must not be so dark, or maybe because he’s a little older he’s more ready for the occasional ‘hopeless’ ending.
I guess we’re generally conditioned to expect the happy ending. I suspect it’s what most children want, and perhaps what most adults want too. Imagine reading lots of books where the whole book is dark and grim and the ending no less so, the outcome so hopeless that you wonder what frame of mind the writer was in, or what he or she had gone through in their life, to end a book in that way.
Numerous studies have shown that a person’s reaction to a traumatic event can be significantly leavened by an ending that is positive – as long as the peak pain felt during the experience is less than the pain experienced at the end.
Recently, debate has intensified with regards to the darkness in teenage literature, specifically the supposed rise in ‘Sick Lit’. Alongside the waves of paranormal romances and dark dystopian thrillers, are readers looking for escapism or to be protected from dark issues and themes? Is it time for a return to ‘lighter’ teen/YA fiction? Or should we be encouraging authors to continue to explore the dark themes that teenagers need help coping with?
I’ll be interested in hearing what other authors and industry professionals have to say, but regarding endings specifically, I think most people would want an All’s Well That Ends Well ending.
www.savitakalhan.comThe Long Weekend book trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14TfYyHgD6Y@savitakalhan
It’s sometimes hard for anyone to raise theissue of cultural and racial diversity in children’s publishing without beingaccused of being misguided or misinformed, of over-reacting or being too politically correct – or even of having a chip on their shoulder.
This post is therefore something of a cop-out. It issimply a list of things I have read or heard over the past year related to blackauthors and/or children’s and young adult books with black characters.
I ask you to make your own mind up aboutwhether they are statements of fact or fiction and what, if anything, needs tochange – and invite responses about how we might go about it.
- Thereis no bias, discrimination or racism in children’s publishing.
- Thereis a limited demand for books by and/or about black people.
- Thereare more children’s books about blackpeople than by black people.
- Eventhe most positive reviews of black authors often compare them either to otherwriters of the same racial background and/or to white writers.
- Ifpublishers already have one or two black authors they are less motivated tofind others.
- Ifpublishers already have one or two successful, high-selling, prize-winningblack authors, they are looking for others in exactly the same mould.
- Bookswith black people on the cover do not sell well.
- Whitereaders do not relate to books about black characters.
- Veryfew manuscripts by black writers are submitted to editors and agents.
- Manyof the manuscripts submitted by black writers are not of publishable qual
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If I heard that said once, I heard it twenty times last Monday night, at #DrinkYA - a party to celebrate the shortlist for the newly fledged YA Book Prize, sponsored and supported by The Bookseller and others including (Movellas, The Reading Agency and World Book Day, and organised by Anna James (@acaseforbooks) along with the fab Bookseller team, the indefatigable Jim Dean (@yayeahyeah blog) and Louie Stowell (@louiestowell). It wasn't the authors there who were saying it, though. It was the bloggers, and in particular the bloggers passionate about UKYA, and determined that books coming out of Great Britain and Ireland should be as big as those in the currently US-dominated market.
Interesting post - I can remember reading a book, which I loved the whole way through. When I got to the ending it was 'hopeless' - it upset me at the time, although admittedly suited the book better. Perhaps all sad endings should have a warning just before you read it, or an alternative happier ending as well?
x Tammie
Tolkein, in his essay 'On Fairytales' said that to be a true fairytale, there must be a happy ending.
But we are not discussing fairytales here and different rules apply. I think an ending in a children's book doesn't have to subscribe to the rules of the traditional 'happy ending' scenario - there can be more honesty than that - but it should leave the protagonist at least having learned positive lessons and better able to continue into the future beyond the end of the book.
So maybe a reasonable option is 'the positive ending' which, as a consequence of realism, need not necessarily be happy.
Tammie, it's interesting how you remember the book with the 'hopeless' ending - those kinds of books seem to leave a lasting impression.
Austin, I agree that for certain children's stories a 'lessons learnt' ending is more honest, as long as it's generally positive. It's the desolate, 'unhappy' ending which seems to be unnacceptable to children, particularly younger ones.
Brecht said: THERE MUST BE HAPPY ENDINGS, MUST, MUST, MUST! And Catherine Storr (Marianne dreams and Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf) said: you can have a SAD ending but not a hopeless one. It was wrong, she thought. to leave kids who are reading the book with NO RAY OF LIGHT WHATEVER at the end. Which is what 'hopeless' is. Not the same thing at all as a sad ending which can be full of sadness but still leave a glimpse of a possible future/redemption etc. I like happy endings myself...don't mind people walking off into the sunset one bit. What I can't bear is books that don't end properly. Books in which it's up to the reader to decide what happens. I call that a shifting of a writer's responsibility on to the reader. Ambiguity can be a strange sort of ending too...leaving you puzzled but not satisfied. Has to be as strong as the beginning I reckon. My favourite ending of all is the Great Gatsby...
I agree that a sad ending is not necessarily the same as a hopeless one - I do think children can cope with a bit of sadness, but not total bleakness. One of my favourite books as a young teenager was Beau Geste (odd, I know, but I read it about 10 times...) I was desperately sad about the fact that Beau died, but there were other characters to identify with that made it through to the end and gave you that satisfying 'all cried out but ready to smile again' feeling.
I agree - sad is not the same as hopeless, and for me, as I said in the blog, hopeless has no place in children's literature, or even in teen literature. I think we could all cope with a sad ending - as long as there is the glimmer of hope amongst it. I would love to write 'happily ever after' endings, but my stories never seem to co-operate with me!
Brecht said that, Adele?!?!?!? Brecht, who wrote the most depressing play in the world? (Mother Courage). ha!
I think if you're telling a story to children it has to end happily. It can be as ghastly and miserable and scary as you like on the way there but it has to be resolved positively. Prefer it if characters change and grow on the way though, don't like the Hollywood formula of the status quo being maintained at the end.
For adults though, I think its different. Some of my favourite endings are ambiguous at the least. I'm thinking of Daphne du Maurier's 'The Birds' (the book not the film) which almost doesn't have an ending at all. And 'Angels with Dirty Faces' (OK a film not a book but we're talking Hollywood endings) where you never really work out what happened.
And then there are the really tragic gut wrenching endings. The last paragraph of Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' left me feeling like I'd been slapped in the face. And I still love the end of 'Planet of the Apes' (I know, another film).
I like an ending which somehow sums up the experience of the whole and leaves you with something long after you've put the book down (or left the cinema).
Anyone seen 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'? Saw it a month ago and I'm still thinking about it.
Jeremy - Things Fall Apart got me too. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is a gut-wrenching story, but if you haven't had a chance to read it I won't spoil the ending. Let's just say it's not a Hollywood ending! I agree that in kid's lit, the ending has to be positive, particularly if the story has been dark. I haven't seen Martha Marcy May Marlene, but I'll look out for it.
It's disturbing as hell, Savita. You'd like it.
Will check out 'A Fine Balance'