Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Wednesday Reads: Nobody But Us

Every Wednesday (or most Wednesdays, or some Wednesdays) will bring you book reviews. Of a special variety. Yes, I am telling you which books are awesome and totally worth reading. But the point of my reviews is to hopefully make you conscious of the market and why this particular book was published: quality of writing, character and plot development, unique quirks of writing, characters, and plot that make it stand out. Take my tips to your own reading and writing, and through Constant Vigilance, will you succeed as a writer.

Nobody But Us is Kristin Halbrook's debut YA novel (by the way, Kristin is a pretty darn cool lady).

Synopsis: From the synopsis of any book you read, you can teach yourself how to write a query letter. This section will both tell you about the book, and what you should learn from the back cover blurb.

Most back cover blurbs and queries tell you just enough about the main characters to get you to connect with them right off the bat, and enough of the plot to get you imagining those characters in the conflict. While this blurb doesn't give you much of either of those, it really doesn't matter. Why? The hook, that's why. Now, I'm not a huge fan of "hook them right away" (don't put us to sleep either, just don't rely on the hook to carry you), but to me it's the whole blurb that should hook you, not just the first sentence. Here? I don't care about anything else. It's the hook. Actually, it's the first three words: "Bonnie and Clyde"
Bonnie and Clyde meets IF I STAY in this addictively heart-wrenching story of two desperate teenagers on the run from their pasts.

"They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.

Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger....

When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough."
Brownie Points: Gah! The end! It's so beautifully awesome! Okay, besides that (because obviously I'm not going to spoil it). The dual narrative was executed to perfection. There is no way you can possibly mix up Zoe and Will's POVs. They speak differently, they think differently, they act differently, they are, in every possible way, different from each other. And you never forget that either. Every decision they make, they are figuring each other out. It's far from a perfect relationship, which is what you love about them, because they try to work through everything.

Which leads me to Brownie Point Number Two. Their relationship. It isn't perfect. Hell, at the end, they know something is very fundamentally wrong. They aren't blind to their problems, they make many mistakes, and keep blundering through like the teenagers they are. Beautifully. Awesome.

Beefs: Once again, I can't think of any. I don't want to. I loved reading this book. It sucked me in and didn't let go until the last page. Then I flipped back twenty pages and re-read the ending. I am not a re-reader, but this is on my "to read again" list. That's successful story telling, no matter which way you look at it.

Who should read it: Anyone who loves a good YA, contemporary, thriller without the serial killers, dysfunctional relationships, etc, etc, etc. I always recommend unpublished writers read debut novels, and really concentrate on why the book, by an untried writer, was published by a big publisher. And the why of Kristin's? It's thrilling, it's real, and it's marketable. What do you mean "marketable"? Those three words again: "Bonnie and Clyde". I'm not saying go out and rewrite classic movies or books, I'm saying find something the market is missing, something only you can deliver.

And if you're in the Seattle area, Kristin's book launch is at the University Bookstore in Mill Creek this weekend (more on her blog).

Happy reading!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Call For Questions

Beginning soon (how soon? Veeeery soon!) on the blog will be a new interview series.

How new? (veeeeery new!) And different too.

How different? (veeeery... okay, it will be recognizable as an interview, so not that different).

Have you ever been into an interview or remember those get-to-know-you days in Elementary school where you had to pull a random question out of a hat and answer it? "If you were a cereal, what would you be and why?" "If you could only wear one color for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?" "Superman swoops down into your path, what would you say to him?"

I'm talking RANDOM here, people.

 
Nope, more random than that.
 
Keep going...
 
Okay, I'm creeped out.

 I'll give you a hint, my new blog series involves agents.

Yes, agents.

The real kind.

And I want to know what you would ask an agent (no, I'm not giving you names, this is general, or heck, think specific and apply it to all agents). Anything from vanilla pudding random, to Alan Rickman giving me nightmares random.

I'll take all your questions and put them in a Santa hat... no a Joker hat... no a bowl. Yes, a bowl is safe. I will put your questions in a bowl and randomly choose one or two or three or four for the agent and we'll learn some very interesting things about the agent. 

I guess we need plenty of the vanilla pudding questions.

Your task now is: What would you ask an agent?

Happy randoming!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Fortune Cookie Friday: Yoda on Patience


Fortune Cookie Friday: Yoda on Patience

 Fridays always feel like Chinese food sort of days, and what's takeout without a fortune cookie? Thus, Fridays will bring you tips, tricks, advice, and some riddles that might apply to everything but will turn a light bulb on in your head (or maybe I just like talking like Yoda).


It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. - Rami Belson

Or, know what you are talking about before speaking or acting. It joins my refrain of "Google it! Google it! Google it!" The answers are out there, you have to know where to look. In this business, any questions pertaining to writing or querying or reading, can be answered online. Google it!

Happy writing!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Wednesday Reads: A Hunger Like No Other

Every Wednesday (or most Wednesdays, or some Wednesdays) will bring you book reviews. Of a special variety. Yes, I am telling you which books are awesome and totally worth reading. But the point of my reviews is to hopefully make you conscious of the market and why this particular book was published: quality of writing, character and plot development, unique quirks of writing, characters, and plot that make it stand out. Take my tips to your own reading and writing, and through Constant Vigilance, will you succeed as a writer.

A Hunger Like No Other book coverA Hunger Like No Other is the first installment of Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series. (Some lists will list it as the second installment, but the first is a novella, and Hunger stands well on its own as the first--plus, I didn't read it as I am, in fact, listening to the series, and the novella's readers did not receive good reviews).

Synopsis: From the synopsis of any book you read, you can teach yourself how to write a query letter. This section will both tell you about the book, and what you should learn from the back cover blurb.
 
This is my favorite structure for romance, first one of the lovers (male or female) then the second, and if you need a third paragraph, it sums it all up so nicely. Note here, how you get a sense of the world without a dedicated sentence to world building. Yet you still know what and where and especially the who. Romance lovers are immediately sold on the why we care.

A mythic warrior who'll stop at nothing to possess her…

After enduring years of torture from the vampire Horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he's waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. This Emmaline is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.

A vampire captured by her wildest fantasy...

Sheltered Emmaline Troy finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents--until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae--and their notorious dark desire--ebb as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings.

An all consuming desire...

Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be...?
Brownie Points: I feel there is a stereotype developing about Paranormal Romance, especially with the upsurge of YA ParaRom and it's this: Mortal girl meets immortal male, he possesses her, her life changes to accommodate his. And what I love about Kresley Cole is that most of her novels take place solidly in The Lore (we are aware of the humans, but we are very much in the paranormal world with the paranormal creatures). So there's that Brownie Point. Another is Emmaline, a beautiful example of a Weak Female Lead who becomes sure of herself in the end, learning how to accept herself and trust in her own strength. But never at any point during her WFL moments is she a weak character--we know her quirks, her unique voice, everything that has made her who she is and will become.

Beefs: Honestly, none come to mind.

The Narrator's Performance: I give the narrator of the audio book, Robert Petkoff, a 9 out of ten. I became engaged in his story telling, his accents were spot-on, he didn't read too slow or too fast, inflections and pauses were great. The only thing keeping his performance from a 10 is he is male and I remembered it every time he read the woman's voice (very few readers, male or female, can get a 10 out of 10 for this reason).

Who should read it: Anyone who loves ParaRom, obviously. I was recommended this book after I'd complained I had read all of JR Ward's novels. KC is a true contender for the top spot on my "Favorite ParaRom Authors." High praise if you know my love of Ward. So if you compare your writing to Ward, you have to read KC (among others of course).

Happy reading!


Monday, January 14, 2013

Grammar Manners: Plural or Singular

Since we all love Mondays and we all love Grammar and the minutes of writing, Mondays are hereafter dedicated to things we'd rather leave in the dark. Might as well start the week with a kick in the pants. I'll bring to you common mistakes I think writers should just know. Tips will range from first-grade knowledge of the English language to Master's Degree expertise. 


I recently received this question:
"Do you refer to a band or a crowd (multiple people) as a single entity or multiple entities?"
Answer: A band or a crowd is a single entity, even though it is made up of many entities. So you would say "The crowd is getting rowdy" rather than "The crowd are getting rowdy."

For many verb-subject agreement in number, just read it aloud and you will hear which one to use, like the above crowd example. No English speaking native would make the mistake of saying "The crowd are". In this instance, the subject is clear: "crowd".

But the real trick is deciphering which is the true subject (only then do you get to decide whether the subject is singular or plural).

Consider our sample sentence with "people" instead of "crowd."
"The people are getting rowdy."
Yes, "people" are plural. But if you combine them together:
'The crowd of people is getting rowdy."
Whoa! The true subject here is "crowd", not "people." I could get way more technical, but let's keep it simple, shall we? Because things can get really complicated after that. For example, money is always singular (Two million dollars is a lot of money), "everyone" is always singular (Everyone has more money than me), two separate nouns is singular if they can be considered a unit (Fish and chips is best with beer batter), a singular object followed by a plural modification is always singular (The bear, as well as her new cubs, is in good health).

As long as you know your basic sentence structure (subject, verb, etc) you should be able to identify the subject, and from there whether it is singular or plural. If in doubt, Google it! Or invest in a good Grammar guide. I refer to "When Words Collide" if I don't feel like Googling it. It lives on my desk just above my computer. It also makes for fun reading when I'm bored!

Happy writing!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

A New Year Announcement

Hello Dear Reader!

I do hope everyone's holidays were wonderful and the new year has brought you all sorts of book and writing related resolutions!

As the new year dawns, I have my own announcement to make. I am retiring from agenting. I have loved working closely with writers, watching them grow and their careers bloom, but I will no longer be representing writers or their fabulous projects.

What will I be doing? I'm staying in the writing community as a freelance editor and remaining a close associate at Andrea Hurst Literary Management on the editorial side. (Yes, we have a department especially for the cultivation of padawans needing that extra push towards whatever their goals may be.) We have great things planned for the new year so please stop by the website and see what we're doing!

What does this mean for you? My blog will be getting a makeover (stay tuned for that), and new features that might include awesome benefits for you (interviews, insights, more Wednesday Reads, oh my!). You may have noticed from my blog, appearances at conferences, spending way too much time on blogs and contests, that I love immersing myself with writers. Most importantly, I love teaching minds that are eager to learn (that would be you). And that, ultimately, is my goal, to teach and spread cheer and wisdom.

What about the inbox? The inbox is empty. If for some reason I have missed your query or ms, I apologize for the oversight (or for my inbox eating your submission). Please consider another agent at the agency. Andrea Hurst Literary Management will no longer be representing YA, but we still have a talented pool of Adult and Non-Fiction agents. Visit the agency website for bios and more info.

Very happy new year to each one of you. This is not goodbye. This is...

Happy Making!
(because, in the writing business, that's what we do... happy writing, happy reading, happy making)