Pauline C. Harris's Blog, page 6

Being a Teen Writer – Signing the Contract

Signing the contract.  The final step.  Okay, I didn’t exactly do this the traditional way.  In other words, I didn’t/don’t have an agent.  And I completely advise that you get one because I’ve heard they’re wonderful.  (Hopefully I’ll get to find that out for myself some day.)

Buutttt, I’ve signed two contracts with two smaller independent publishing houses (at different times) and I’m going to talk about my experience.

 

Going Under Contract as a Minor

 

So, the big thing I had been worried about from the very beginning of my querying experience was, “I’m a teenager, I’m under eighteen and ohmygoodness, how does this come into play when/if signing a contract?”  To my great surprise and relief, it really didn’t matter.  Both publishers were still offering publication and no problems arose.  The only thing that sort of popped my bubble was that my parents had to sign my contract for me.  Sort of ruined my fantasy moment I’d been dreaming of since the age of twelve, but whatever.  (I’ll be 18 in October and therefore be able to sign my own contracts from thereon out.  Happiness.)

So basically, as long as a legal guardian signs for you, there’s not going to be a problem.  Granted, there are some publishers who don’t take on authors under the age of 18, but they usually mention that on their submissions page so you’ll know not to even send a query letter.

Another random tip when signing a contract is to look out for the option or exclusitivity clause.  Either one of these (depending on the contract and wording) can bind your future works to that publisher, so make sure to either get rid of it, negotiate it, or deal with the fact that you might be with this publisher for the rest of your career.  Once again, I’m not an expert on contracts, so try, try, try to get yourself a literary agent.  That’s what they’re for.

 

Anyway, hope this helped!

 

~ Pauline

Win an ebook copy of Mechanical!

Hey! Just a quick post to say that you can enter to win an ebook copy of Mechanical! Click the link below for the entry form.

https://www.facebook.com/FireIceYA/app_208195102528120

Do it!

Being a Teen Writer – Looking for Agents and Publishers

Alright, this is going to be a quick post – I’m basically just going to be covering the main question I had when I first started querying agents and publishers as a teenager – does my age matter?

When I started querying for my first novel I was thirteen.  So that makes it roughly four years total that I’ve been doing this.  And I’ve made basically every mistake possible.  Like, all of them, aside from the horror stories you hear of writers stalking agents and sending hate mail.  That would just be rude.

 

Don’t mention your age – it doesn’t matter.

 

And one mistake I made, was telling them my age.  “Hi, I’m Pauline and I’m 13 and I wrote a book – here, look at it.”  It wasn’t pretty.  I cringe at the sight of my past query letters.  And telling them my age didn’t really help.  I’d get responses that were somewhat patronizing, telling me to keep going, but that they were passing.  Or, I’d get requests for partials, but knew deep down they were only doing it because I was 13 and they wanted to give me a chance.  It took me awhile to realize that whether I got published or not, I wanted it to be about my book and not about how old I was.  And then I stopped putting my age in the query letters.  I simply told them I was an aspiring writer having written X amount of books etc.  I saved my age for later – after they’d offered publication, or if they asked beforehand.

Sometimes, I’d get a response asking a few questions, such as my occupation.  Then, I’d tell them I was a teenager and basically just a student.  I used to worry that if I waited until after they’d offered publication to tell them my age, that I was being dishonest in some way, but that’s really not the case.  The publisher doesn’t care how old you are.  They care about how good your book is.  And that’s it.  Thankfully.

So if you’re a teen writer who’s querying agents or publishers, don’t sweat it.  The worst that can happen is you make a few mistakes and by the time you’re an adult, you know everything to avoid and how to snag an agent/publisher.  That’s basically what happened to me.

By the way, don’t ever send a multiple book query letter.  Or address your letter, ‘To Whom it May Concern’.  Or query multiple agents in the same house.  The list goes on, but those are some of my biggest fails.

Anyway, hope this helps and have a great day!

 

~ Pauline

 

 

Mechanical copies!

Aaaahhh!!

So today as I was diligently doing my math homework, moaning and groaning the whole time, suddenly my dog goes crazy and I look out the window as FedEx drives up and plops a nice big package by the front door.  So I promptly run outside and melt into a little puddle of excitement as I open it and find…

MECHANICAL!!!
Side note: My braces were removed Tuesday, so I’m actually SMILING in a photo!

The spine.

Back of the book!

 

And I just had to do this. Wouldn’t I look nice with big blue eyes?

So, needless to say, I had a pretty nice day.

 

Pauline

 

 

Being a Teen Writer – Writing from…no experience?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “Write what you know.”  And between the ages of roughly 13 to 18, let’s face it, what do you know, really?  Have you ever loved anyone, gotten married, had kids, lived through something heartbreaking, something wonderful beyond belief?

For most of us, no.

And what’s the most infuriating about this, is that so many sources for aspiring teenage writers basically just tell you to quit writing and experience life a little before starting it up again.  I mean…what?! *outrage* If anyone ever gives you the aforementioned piece of advice, don’t listen.

 

Experience or just really good speculation?

 

The question I asked myself before starting to write one of my novels a few years ago was “How do I write a love story, if I’ve never been in love?”  Granted, the whole story didn’t revolve around love, but there were romantic elements in the story.  And I finally decided, that I didn’t need to experience it to write about it.  All I needed to do was make it believable, whether that skill came from experience, or just really good speculation.  And that’s the key.  I mean, think about it.  I doubt Suzanne Collins ever fought to the death in a creepy televised arena.  So does that make her unqualified to write The Hunger Games?  I mean, if experience was the only thing you could possibly base your writing on, there would be no such genre as fantasy.  Or science fiction.  This world would suck.

 

Experience is important, but it’s not essential.

 

Obviously, experience helps a lot when writing.  I remember after having my first kiss, one of the first thoughts that fluttered through my weirdly confused brain was, “Hey, I can actually write about this now.”  Sick, I know.  But I wrote about it.

So don’t discount experience, but don’t tell yourself you can’t write because of your lack of it either.  I’ve never been in love, but I have characters in my novels falling in love left and right.  I’ve seen and read about love enough to be able to write a pretty convincing love story.

Also, you may not be as inexperienced as you think.  Like I mentioned in my last post, if you’re a teen writing about teenagers, you’re probably one of the best candidates for the job.  You’re right in the midst of it.  You’ve experiences teenager-ness and you’re still experiencing it.

 

Experience is overrated.

 

So basically what I’m saying is, experience is supremely overrated.  I learned how to write romantic scenes from reading romantic scenes.  I learned how to write chase scenes, not by chasing or being chased by a serial killer (thank goodness), but by reading good chase scenes.

 

Learn to write by reading.

 

So, to make up for your lack of experience, find your inspiration elsewhere – like reading.  Read anything and everything and I guarantee you’ll become a better writer.  It’s just how it works.  It’s how I learned to write and if I can do it, then anyone can.

 

 

Pauline

Being a Teen Writer – Finding the Confidence to Write Seriously

Okay, you’re a teenager.  And you’re a writer.  Then I’m sure you’ve experienced the blank stares and weird silence after you’ve blurted out this slightly embarrassing fact.  Luckily, I haven’t had to deal with too much of it, but I’ve had some people not take me seriously.  I’d tell someone I wanted to be an author and I’d get that look like ‘yeah, good luck’, or ‘okay…?’.

The truth is, most people don’t really understand what it takes to write a book.  Or a short story.  Or even a poem.  I mean, this madness is tough.

So, this post isn’t as informative, as it is supportive.  I mean, I went back and forth for years between calling myself a writer or an author, or just saying I ‘kind of write, sometimes…’.  But seriously, own it.  Because it’s something you love, whether you’re great at it yet, or not.

 

Learn about the publishing industry.

 

It’s never too early to start getting to know the business – I started querying when I was thirteen and although the only things I received were about a billion rejection letters, it taught me what works and what doesn’t.  So by the time I actually wrote something worth reading, I had a good idea on how to write an adequate query letter and how the whole publishing process works.  (Agents and publishers like authors who know what they’re doing – so figuring out the whole publishing process is most definitely a good idea.)

 

You might have an advantage.

Despite all the rolling of eyes teen authors can get from writing ‘seriously’, remember that we have an advantage.  If you’re a teen writing MG or YA, you know how teenagers think and act, you don’t have to remember it from a long-ago past.  Many serious writers struggle with Children’s, MG and YA literature because they can’t get back in touch with who they were when they were a teen or a child.  They’ve forgotten how teenagers think.  And luckily, you are one.  So you’re an expert.

Feels nice, right?  To be an expert in something?  Yep.

 

Practice makes perfect.

 

So ignore anyone who says you can’t do it and just write.  Write even if it sucks.  I have a billion unfinished and finished manuscripts that are probably some of the worst pieces of fiction I’ve ever laid eyes on.  But they made me a better writer.  And they were fun.

 

Have fun.

 

Don’t forget the fun aspect of writing.  Because after all, you are a teenager.  I mean, why did you start writing?  For instant fame and money?  I doubt it.  You started writing because you wanted to and you kept writing because you liked it.  You can be serious about your writing and have fun as well.

 

 

Pauline

10 DAYS

10 days until Mechanical comes out!  And I’m beyond excited.  It’s ridiculous.  I wrote Mechanical when I was fifteen, two years ago, this month, actually. I remember sitting on a six hour plane flight home from a vacation, writing diligently on my laptop, thinking to myself the whole time, “Maybe this will be the one.”

Mechanical wasn’t only my first real book, my first real literary accomplishment, but writing the whole series taught me a lot about myself.  After a billion rejection letters in the first month of querying, I learned not to take myself too seriously, to step back and fix the problems.  After the first year of rejection letters I learned not to give up, not to take is as a failure, and to keep trying.  I learned while writing the last chapter of my series, how similar I am to Drew – how she was a different person on page one of Mechanical and how I was as well.  I learned that, like Drew, making mistakes and not being perfect, was okay.

It was a crazy, fun adventure writing and finding a publisher for Mechanical and my biggest hope is that readers like it as much as I liked creating it.

Pauline

Character Revisions

I recently got the advice that my NaNoWriMo book needs some serious character revising and since this suggestion came from someone very experienced in the publishing field, I decided to definitely give it a go.  One of my characters didn’t have strong motivation, one of them seemed too generic, and a relationship between two of my characters seemed a little unexplained.  Once given this observation and rereading a few scenes, I realized how true this was and decided I needed to do some work.

I’m not claiming to be an expert on the subject of revising – I doubt I’ll ever be an expert at the rate with which I realize how many things I don’t know about publishing – but I thought I’d write a post about my experience with character revisions and my revising process.

Revising characters, I’ve come to realize, is in many ways much easier than other types of revising.  With characters there are natural and easy places to fit in new ideas or mannerisms.  Characters talk and think and interact with each other and when skimming through your book it’s easy to find those places.

Step 1: Read your manuscript.

The first thing you should do when editing your novel is sit down and read it straight through as if you’re the reader.  Imagine you just bought the book or got it from the library and are sitting down to read it – forget the fact that you wrote it.  This way, you remember everything that goes on and your memory is refreshed on characters and plot points.  Keep paper and a pencil nearby to jot down notes or typos.

Step 2: Color code your characters.

The first thing I did was go out to buy highlighters, note cards and sticky notes.  I got four colors and assigned three of them to three of my characters (I only have three main characters in my book, if you have more, there are definitely a billion more highlighter colors you can find), then I took my last color and designated that for typos and other plot problems.

Step 3: Create character outlines.

Once you’ve designated colors for each of your characters, go through and figure out who your character really is.  If you’re anything like I am when writing a book, you probably write your novel and slowly figure out who your character is without outlining them first.  If not, re-outlining your characters can never hurt.  Three important things to ask yourself about each of your characters are what are their wants, fears and secrets?  If your character has no motivation, then the story doesn’t make sense.  And everyone has fears and secrets.  Find out what your characters’ are.

What I did was designate note cards for each character and each topic; wants, fears, secrets and relationships with other characters.  This helped me realize where my plot points were thin and what needed work.  Identify the plot holes and get ready to fill them.

Step 4: Read your manuscript again, with character revisions in mind.

Every time you come across a scene dealing with one of your character points that needs revising, or could possibly be revised, highlight it with the appropriate color.  Write in the margins or on note cards what you’re going to change and put your character’s color sticky note at the top of the page to go back to later.

Step 4: Make the changes on your computer

Go through your manuscript, find the areas that you need to change, figure out what it is exactly and change it in your computer document.  There’s really nothing more I can say about this step.

One thing I’ve done with a few of my novels, is print out the manuscript again (with the parts that I changed highlighted) and re-read it, looking for more errors, anything I missed, and anything else I want to change.  Depends on how much work my manuscript needs (or how lazy I’m feeling ).

Now, go buy yourself a Starbucks or something. Yum.

Happy Revising!

~ Pauline