Work life after returning from a show tends to be pretty busy. When you’ve been out of the office for a week, you often have a lot of catching up to do. It’s always complicated when warm weather hits because then you have coworkers going on vacation, etc.
So if you’re wondering where I’ve been, now you know–things have been really busy. And it’s not much to speak of–deadlines to make, books to get in from the copyeditor and proofreader and send them on to be typeset, books to edit and get feedback to the author, that kind of stuff. The everyday life of an editor which has been covered again and again here. 
In my off time, I’ve been getting out and enjoying a bit of the lovely Seattle weather we’ve been having. This is the time of year that I first moved to Seattle–my three-year anniversary at Mirrorstone was just a couple weeks ago, actually–and this is the time of year that sucks you in and makes it worth living in Seattle. I’ve even been able to get my allergies (mostly) under control the last few weeks, and that bodes well for a summer of outdoor activities. Yesterday some friends and I had a barbecue out on my deck, and I tried yoga for the first time with my friend yesterday morning at a community yoga-thon that left me more relaxed than I think I’ve felt in a decade. I think I should start taking the yoga class at work! (One nice perk of working at Wizards of the Coast is that we have a gym and a dojo where we can go work out any time, and they offer personal training and classes like yoga, Pilates, and kickboxing for a relatively low fee.) And my friends and I are planning camping trips, canoeing outings, and road trips like mad right now. I think I may just have plans every weekend for the next two months.
So we editors aren’t always holed up in our offices reading. Just most of the time. 

I’m taking a break from tilling the garden with a potato fork (it actually works pretty well on a small plot and you don’t have to use a gas tiller, though on anything like the 1/2 acre garden we had when I was growing up that would be torture–thank heavens my dad used a tractor, then a tiller, for that one!) and waiting on the cable guy to show up for the second time in two days (the guy yesterday hooked up our internet but completely unhooked the cable in two bedrooms) to bring you this entry about last week’s International Reading Associat
ion conference. We had a brand new booth this year (if you’ve seen it in previous years, it looks very similar, with some tweaks like carved dragon heads on the bookshelves) and we really looked forward to meeting all the teachers who come to this conference. Normally, they say, attendance is in the 20,000 to 30,000 range. I’m not sure of this year’s exact number, but I think I met every single one of those 20-30,000 teachers over the course of the three days I worked the booth! 

I got to do the window displays in the booth this year–it was so much fun making it all pretty. The end result is a booth that looks very cozy, much like a cross between a Victorian bookshop and, as one teacher pointed out, a pub.

When I checked into the hotel in Atlanta, I was surprised to find a pretty fancy room–a balcony with a view of the pool (for which I’d forgotten my swimsuit, and it was great swimming weather), an iPod alarm clock (I need to get me one of these–I love that I can wake up to a playlist or play my iPod any time–right now I just use my computer for that), and weirdest of all, my bathroom towels decoratively folded. A flower for the washcloth under the soap dish, and a little shirt for the bath mat. I checked with my coworkers, and I seem to be the only one who had something quite that fancy. Apparently my housekeeper was on the creative side–but only for that first day, so I’m glad I got a shot of it before I used the bath mat! That was balanced out by how housekeeping kept moving my things around–even putting my toothbrush, which I’d left out to dry, into its travel case, and lining up all my allergy meds in a neat row. There’s service, and then there’s invasiveness. That was plain odd.

Please excuse the dark exposure. I’m a little too lazy today to do any Photoshopping.

soap dish

Bath mat

ipod alarm clock

The view

me, taking in the view

This year authors Candice Ransom and D.L. Garfinkle were on site signing their books–the Time Spies series for Candice and the new Supernatural Rubber Chicken for

  . We had some rubber chickens on hand to promote the debut of the Ed, the Supernatural Rubber Chicken, so they played a few antics on us, trying to take over the booth. 

I also got to meet Lisa Yee (

 ), a blog friend for a while but the first time we met in person–and of course, Peepy.

Lisa is the author of several hilarious books. Check out her Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time, and So Totally Emily Ebers.
 
And had ice cream with blog friend and fellow editor Alvina and her coworker Joe.

 

More pictures later. That’s enough for one entry!
 

Atlanta is gorgeous. A normal warm spring day! It’s gorgeous. I love Seattle, but I’m still in sweaters till June there. The other day was wearing a spring cotton shirt and a skirt, and it was just lovely.

Well, till I got coffee spilled on me at dinner, but hopefully it’ll wash out. There have been a few weird moments like that this week, but never all that bad–don’t worry, the coffee wasn’t too hot and things happen. I just hope my favorite shirt won’t be stained!

I’ve been meaning to post all week, because we’ve had some very photo-worthy moments–housekeeping in my hotel folded my bathmat like a little shirt, for example–but I have just been so exhausted! Who knew there were so many teachers?

So it’s been a great show, and I’ll post pictures soon.

Meanwhile, it’s a little late for this, but make sure to catch the second half of my guest appearance on Writing Excuses, where we
talk about submitting to editors and they ask me about Hallowmere and other great projects I’m working on.

Via Oz and Ends:

Scalzi discusses the state of YA fantasy and SF sales compared to adult. (Scalzi’s got some good stuff this week!) Of particular note is that old refrain, often heard from authors and readers of adult SFF, that YA is an “undiscovered country”–when, as Scalzi points out, it’s kinda that the adult SFF people just aren’t in on the highly popular open secret that’s selling far and above what any adult SFF bestseller is . . . .

I’m taking advantage of still having internet at home when I thought it was going to turn off last night (we’re in household internet transition) to post one last thing before I go dark for a week. I’ll be at IRA next week, so it’s unlikely I’ll be posting from there.

On the flip side of the content question coin, a reader asks,

I’ve been reading your blog for awhile with interest. I have written a teen fantasy and I have a question about Mirrorstone and YA in general. My novel has some profanity, drinking, and sex. (I like to call it a Veronica Mars meets Tamora Pierce meets Joss Whedon type of book) This seems quite ordinary to me as my protagonist is seventeen years old. (And I remember high school vividly.) But I keep hearing that YA should be ‘cleaner’. Is that true and does it mean that I should submit to Wizards under the adult imprint?

Thanks for reading! As are most of my answers, this one is “it depends.”

How graphic is the mature content? We at Mirrorstone keep to a fairly strict PG-13 standard, so anything of a graphic nature really isn’t for us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t shy away from tough subjects. But Wizards books often have that restriction as well (though not as strictly) because of corporate policy–there is just a line we won’t cross as a company.

That doesn’t mean you won’t find that kind of thing out there, though, in the YA marketplace. There is a YA book to suit pretty much any teen’s taste, from the gamut of innocent adventure and fantasy like Shannon Hale (who nevertheless also doesn’t shy away from extremely tough subjects) to the darker work of Holly Black and Melissa Marr. (See that previous post for more on that.)

But that doesn’t mean we’re the right publisher for you. Or it might. The best way to answer this question is to read widely. Read all our YA books–check out our anthology, Magic in the Mirrorstone, and see the kind of variety we’re looking for–and notice that it has a Holly Black story and a Cecil Castellucci story, both authors who are known for their edgy material.
Look at how they crafted their stories, and see if your work fits within that same gamut. Then check out other books from other publishers putting out books similar to yours, and after all that, submit accordingly. You may decide that we’re not quite a fit for you–but then, you might.

Now, the secondary issue in your question is adult versus YA. Is an edgy novel with a 17-year-old protagonist YA, or is it adult?

Again, it depends.

Generally if your protagonist is living your story in the moment–not looking back on being 17 from the point of view of a 30-something–then that’s one clue that it’s YA.

Generally if teens (including the teen you remember yourself being at 15 or 16, because kids read up) would be more interested in the story than adults would, then it’s YA. Check out coverage of the “Think Future” Panel Debates to see some good discussion of this issue. Note what George Nicholson of Sterling Lord Literistic said about S.E. Hinton’s books:

Nicholson provided some historical perspective, recalling the days there was no category called “young adult.” Then, in the 1970s, a few writers came along “who had a social context,” such as S.E. Hinton, and a teen audience was identified and located. “When [Hinton] was first published by Viking,” Nicholson recalled, “No one wanted it in the adult world. But when the book was republished as a book for teens, with a new cover, it began to sell in the millions.”

With that in mind, who do you see reading your books? Thirty-somethings? Twenty-somethings? Or right smack in the teen years, anywhere from 12 to 18 or 19 year olds?

Also, boys or girls?

If you’re looking for teens to read it, you should be trying to sell it to a publisher who publishes books for teens, and then target a YA publisher who targets the readership you’re looking to reach. 

Teens, especially boys, do read the books published by the adult imprint at Wizards, so perhaps that complicates it and takes you back to square one, but I think if you just make sure to keep in mind what kinds of books that publisher makes and send it to the imprint with books most like your own, you’ll be fine.

John Scalzi has some great points today that extend our discussion of self-publishing from a couple weeks ago. Specifically I don’t think I covered the returnability issue:

3. No access to bookstores or other retail outlets, because most bookstores won’t take non-returnable items, which my printed books would be. This further limits the chance that people who don’t already know me will find my work. This is a problem because I do in fact get a lot of my readers from people taking a chance on my books in the bookstores (for that I can thank my book and cover designers, who help draw their eyes in the first place). There are ways to get around this, but they take lots of time and effort.

Check it out.

Man, that was one heck of a papercut. Right on the pad of my index finger, too.

If you’re going to be in Atlanta for the International Reading Association conference, be sure to stop by the Mirrorstone booth, #721. Lots to see and authors Candice Ransom and D.L. Garfinkle will be signing in the booth. Also, each author will be the star of her own reception in the Hyatt Regency one night that week. Make sure to stop by and say hi, and get a signed ARC or book! Hear more from Candice and Debbie as they discuss, respectively, transitional readers and using humor to reach reluctant readers.
Here’s the signing schedule:
Monday, May 5
Time Spies author Candice Ransom signing in booth #721
10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Candice Ransom presentation and reception
Hyatt Regency Spring Room 6 p.m.

Enjoy a glass of wine and a light snack with acclaimed children’s book author Candice Ransom for a very special presentation on Sending Them Back to the Past to Help Reach the Future: Using the Time Spies Series to Guide Transitional Readers.

Tuesday, May 6
Supernatural Rubber Chicken author D.L. Garfinkle signing in booth #721
11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Candice Ransom signing in booth #721
3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
D.L. Garfinkle presentation and reception
Hyatt Regency Spring Room 6 p.m.

Sit back with a glass of wine and a light snack and meet acclaimed author and humorist, D.L. Garfinkle as she discusses Laughing and Literacy: Using Humorous Books to Turn Reluctant Readers into Eager Readers.

Wednesday, May 7
D.L. Garfinkle signing in booth #721
11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

I’ve said I’d write about this for a while and I’ve never quite found the time. I still don’t have a lot of time, but I needed blog fodder and this is a long-standing question. Also, I think that even if you create your own world and intend to write a series, there are a lot of storytelling lessons to be learned from shared-world fiction.
As you probably know, Wizards of the Coast is known for its shared-world fiction–fiction in worlds shared by many authors. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron may be the most familiar WotC brand names, and outside of us, in adult and YA fantasy, there are novels in the Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, and many other universes. Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden are also shared-world fiction–and the models upon which a lot of shared world series build. (Notice how many shared worlds are media tie-ins. This is not always the case, but as I’ll discuss below, movies and TV shows do lend themselves well to this kind of print fiction.) The challenges of writing within these already-established worlds are completely different from making up your own world from scratch–but at the same time, can be freeing in many ways, too.
Mirrorstone has several shared-world lines: Dragonlance: The New Adventures, Star Sisterz, and Knights of the Silver Dragon were our company’s first forays into children’s literature, and all of them were set in worlds shared by many different authors who had to coordinate between themselves and the editors to ensure consistency in style, worldbuilding, character growth, and plot. DLNA was set in the same world, Krynn, that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s original Dragonlance Chronicles were set, Star Sisterz got their world from a game by the same name, and Knights of the Silver Dragon used the world and monsters of the game Dungeons and Dragons.
Writing in a shared world is a great way for beginning writers to increase (and show off) their writing chops–and get their name out there. Rather than having to come up with the world–and sometimes even the characters–on their own, the writer can play with plot and characterization within an already-established world, complete with its own rules. Rather than having to make up the world, the writer can focus on story arc.
The challenge of doing so, of course, is that you can’t just say, “I think Buffy should now have wings and be able to fly about the planet.” Buffy’s world has rules, and (warning: spoilers in link) unless she specifically has an affair with a particular kind of creature, she’s probably not going to suddenly sprout into a giant. But this is important in creator-owned stories, too!
Then again, the challenge of doing so can also be to see just how you can explain certain things within a given set of rules, such as how a kender might be able to do magic.*
But don’t let that fool you–because writing in another world can be just as challenging as making up your own, but in a different way. Shared-world series have changed a lot since Nancy Drew, but we might learn a lot from the old girl sleuth, too. (Which won’t be covered in this post, as I went off on a tangent, but definitely see Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her for more information on the Stratemyer syndicate, who had a lot of shared-world mysteries for young readers in its day.)
I think the best way of looking at shared-world series is by using TV shows as a model. Multiple writers work on TV shows. Writers on a show may change from year to year, so the creative mix sometimes changes–but overall, the show must have a consistent voice, characters must remain consistent even as they grow (if the characters are meant to grow, of course). A lot of quality TV shows are made in this collaborative environment, and I think shared-world book series can have that same high quality of storytelling.
I often use favorite teen and fantasy shows as examples of storytelling for my shared-world authors (and for series in general), too–because shows like Veronica Mars (especially the first and second seasons) (also, created by a YA author), Firefly, Heroes, and Buffy use storytelling skills that can be easily transferred to writing book series. For example, look specifically at plot arcs. What kinds of plot arcs does a TV series like Veronica Mars deal with? First season, we had the season-long plot arc of the mystery of Veronica’s best friend’s killer. Then we had plot arcs that might last a few episodes, usually dealing with her relationship between her friends or boyfriend. Then there was the plot of the episode, whatever mystery Veronica was solving that night.
How can we apply these plot arc ideas to novels? For one thing, a series has to have an overall arc, whether you’re talking about a trilogy or longer. If you’re a fan of the Wheel of Time series, you have probably been following my friend Brandon Sanderson’s discussions of how he’s working on wrapping up the tail end of the series. While that’s not a shared world in the strictest sense–after all, Jordan always intended to finish his own series, but his health got in the way–this is similar in that Brandon must deal with writing in someone else’s voice, finishing up story threads that he didn’t lay, and working with characters and plots that he didn’t create. Jordan planned the arc of the series years ago (and created the notes and outlines that Brandon is now using as his guide). And so it is with any series, including shared-world, though with something as open-ended as shared-world sometimes all you can do is plan an arc and hope the next arc fits in.
So then we go back to the TV show idea–the Lost writers, for example, say they’ve known generally where they want to end the series since they began it, but they couldn’t know whether the first season would be the only one or not. So it is in shared-world fiction a lot of the times, so you have to break down your ar
cs a little bit so that readers can still be satisfied with the smaller resolutions, while still left wanting more. At the end of an episode (one volume), that episode’s arc should be wrapped up. But questions might remain. Veronica may only have found one clue to who killed her best friend–and that clue itself might lead her in the wrong direction next time. But the high schooler who just paid her $500 to find out who planted fake test scores in his locker should find out by the end of the episode who done it.
The Hallowmere series is technically a shared-world series because Tiffany Trent, its creator, is not the only writer playing in this world. The books are being released at the rate of about three or four a year, and I fear what I might do to Tiffany if I tried to make her write three books a year all by herself! So we brought in a few coauthors who are taking on the points of view of the main character Corrine’s friends. Books 1-3 have an arc all their own–Corrine goes to Falston, discovers the world of the Fey, and from there they head off to adventure in mysterious places as Corrine and her friends try to track down the Unhallowed.
But at the end of Corrine’s arc in volume three, the story isn’t nearly over. No, actually, the story only grows from there. In volume four, Maiden of the Wolf, Canadian author Angelika Ranger (), joins Tiffany Trent to write from the point of view of Ilona, the stubborn tomboy Hungarian. Each coauthor must coordinate with me and especially with Tiffany to make sure that her or his details match up with Tiffany’s vision of the series and with where the series is going for each of the rest of the authors, to ultimately wrap up with Tiffany’s solo conclusion in book 10, Ouroborous Undone. Each book has its own arc, revealing all sorts of mysteries, but supports the greater arc of the entire ten-book series.
Oh, there’s so much on shared worlds I could pontificate on, and I’m afraid this post is already long and convoluted, and I have work to do. So let’s stop here and see where we go. What kinds of questions might you have on shared-world fiction? Does this help answer some of them?
*Kender are a hobbit-like race in the Dragonlance world which are considered, basically, so ADD that they can’t learn magic, but also some people believe it’s a racial trait for them not to be able to do so. Personally, I like that Dragonlance: The New Adventures turned a lot of those stereotypes on their heads.
Topic for a future post: Working with an editor in shared-world fiction, working as an editor in shared-world (coordination between authors, series bibles, etc.)