Category: writing

A little more info, but not much

- Stacy 4 Comments

If you’re my friend on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter, you will know that I’ve revealed the big secret I’ve been keeping: That I’m starting a small press with a friend. I don’t feel ready to give many details about it yet because I’m still working on the website and a variety of details related to the business side of things, but I did want to give you a little more information, so as not to be all teasing about it. I just don’t want to count any chickens, etc. — so I can only give you the bare bones until I have something I can point people to.

I’ve been considering this possibility for years — it’s actually been a dream of mine since perhaps college or a few years after I graduated. When I was laid off from Mirrorstone, I looked for a job in New York City publishing, but I was laid off right before all the layoffs were starting there, which meant that what few job openings were still around were hard to come by, and most other places were either in a hiring freeze or preparing for possible layoffs. I moved to Utah to freelance while I figured out what my next step was. I considered becoming an agent, which is a common path for editors in my position, but that didn’t feel right either.

In the mean time, as you know if you read this blog, I’ve been critiquing manuscripts directly for authors, teaching the occasional community writing seminar (remember: worldbuilding seminar at the end of this month!), and providing freelance editorial services to a variety of publishers — mostly copyediting and proofreading. But even the freelancing is drying up these days — as publishers cut back, they pull all their freelance services in-house, piling more work on the editors they still have left. I enjoy helping new writers, but I like seeing the whole process, having the end result of a printed book to share with readers. I love being an in-house editor.

I’m still sending submissions to Tor — and am still looking for agented submissions for that, and for books by authors with whom I’ve worked in the past (including requesting a full manuscript or revisions) — but that isn’t a full-time thing.

One of the issues in fantasy publishing in the last six months or so have been about how fantasy is typically white, and it’s gotten me thinking (and plotting) about doing something more specific within that particular segment of the market. Racefail, especially, got me thinking about how children’s and YA fantasy and science fiction, while we’re working on becoming more representative of the readers, still don’t always reach the kids from various multicultural backgrounds. (Don’t even get me started on the all-white casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.) Most of the kids I know who love fantasy are white/of a European Caucasian descent, and no wonder, because they are the kids most likely to identify with the characters in children’s and YA fantasy. But how can we reach Latino kids? Do Asian-American kids identify with most of the fantasy that’s out there? Don’t kids of all kinds of backgrounds read many non-Western stories, and can’t those stories be told in a way that reaches a wide range of modern American kids? There are some great books out there that do this–and I want to contribute to making more of them possible.

I love all sorts of fantasy, including fantasy with white characters, whether or not it’s inclusive of multiculturalism. But there’s so much already out there, and I got to wondering how we might be able to bring what is currently a niche market (most multicultural books are nonfiction or realism) and combine it with the adventure, romance, magic, forward-thinking, and all the other awesome things that fantasy and science fiction provide to readers, bringing out more stories with characters of all sorts of cultural backgrounds.

So that’s the thinking behind the small press — publishing multicultural fantasy and science fiction. I’ve been working on a business plan, with all the intricacies involved in that, with a business partner (who is also a good friend) who cares about these things as well. We’ve got a site reserved and are working on submission guidelines, and we’re working on a number of processes necessary to starting the business. In addition to the publishing part of the business, we’ve also got a lot of ideas about how to get involved in the community, locally and throughout the country. We want to be a force for good not only in awareness of the issues, but in just bringing good books out to all sorts of readers no matter what their cultural inspiration. Once we have those things in place, I’ll be able to tell you more details like what kinds of stories we’re looking for and how to submit, and where to submit to, and all those things that you’ll want to know. I will continue to critique individual authors’ work and freelancing until we make an official announcement about what we’re looking for.

It takes a lot of money to start a publishing company, even a small press, no matter how important the cause. With that in mind, I’ve added a button on the sidebar for anyone who believes in what we’re doing and would like to donate to the effort. It’s not by any means something I’ll push–this will be my last mention of it in the blog — I just thought that if anyone was interested and wanted to, I’d make the option available. If you also believe in expanding fantasy and science fiction to be more inclusive, please consider helping out. All donations will go into the capital fund for the small press.

Hope that answers at least a few questions about what we’re hoping to do, at least until we have an official company presence on the web to direct you to.

Testing

- Stacy

Updating my previous posts to get them to show up on LJ doesn’t seem to be working. At least it’s not that many posts to copy over, if it comes to that. Here’s a test post to see if the plugin is working correctly on cross-posting NEW entries, even if it’s not working on updating old ones.

ETA: That seemed to have worked. I’m still getting really frustrated with the linkback, though–it keeps adding backslashes before the apostrophe. I just deleted FIVE of them! And now they’re BACK!

New seminar: Worldbuilding in MG/YA science fiction and fantasy

- Stacy

I have a confirmed date, time, and place for our next local seminar on writing fantasy for children and young adults. This time we’re going to focus specifically on worldbuilding–how it’s different for younger audiences (and how it’s the same as worldbuilding you might hear about in adult books), how to really hit the right tone with the audience you’re seeking to reach, how to use key details to flesh out your setting, how to use worldbuilding to create character, support the plot, and make your world come alive!

Here’s the skinny:

Provo Library, Provo, UT
Bullock Room 309
1-5 p.m.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Deadline: June 19

Cost: $45 for individuals (the increase in price is because I reserved the room for another hour, so we have plenty of time to workshop)
$35 for groups of five or more (make sure when you register to tell me who is in your group, or at least tell me who the “group leader” is)

We’ve got a bigger room this time, so be sure to tell your friends and anyone who might be interested–instead of being limited to 24 people, we can have 30-40 (I won’t want to get bigger than that, because we want to have a good number of people who want to workshop to be able to read).

On the day of the seminar, be sure to bring a sample from your current work in progress. It does not have to be the first chapter! Whatever section you think is the best representative of your worldbuilding and/or that you want the most help in creating a sense of worldbuilding: that’s the section to bring.

As with the previous seminar, we’ll start with me lecturing a little, giving you information on the topic and plenty of examples from great books. Then we’ll start workshopping! You don’t *have* to share your own work, but you’ll get a professional editor’s opinion on how you might improve a particular aspect of your story, and great feedback from all the rest of the people in the class, too.

My intern will be helping me with registration, so the directions for registration are a little different this time. As before, if you want to pay via PayPal, send the payment to me at stacylwhitman AT gmail DOT com, but then send an email to Chersti at cjstapley AT gmail DOT com, giving her the following information:

Name
Address
Phone number
Email
The one thing you’re most hoping to learn about from this class (this helps me to gauge the learning levels of everyone in the class so I can tailor the seminar to the people who are attending)

Note that my email is down, so I won’t be able to answer any questions today until it comes back up. But Chersti will confirm registration, and once I receive the payment I’ll notify her and she’ll keep track of who has paid, confirming with you that we got your payment.

Also, watch that deadline! If I don’t have enough registrants (I need at least 10 people registered to make it worth the room rental), we’ll cancel. But I don’t think we need to worry about that–just a head’s-up to let you know that we need at least a certain number of registrants for it to happen. We’ll have plenty of room for everyone, but you’ll want to register early so that I know you’re coming.

3-chapter critique catch-up

- Stacy

I’m catching up on a multitude of 3-chapter critiques and one novel critique this week that I’ve owed to people for a few weeks now. If you’re one of the people waiting on me to get back to you for a 3-chapter critique and you don’t hear back from me by late Thursday (I have ConDuit on Friday and Saturday), then please email me, as your file might have slipped through the cracks. I don’t want to miss anyone!

For those of you waiting on full novel critiques, I am still a few weeks behind, but catching up. Thanks for your patience!

Portraying people of color in children’s/YA fantasy–are we anywhere near “there” yet?

- Stacy 7 Comments

3/21/2012, ETA: Because this post has been linked a lot over the course of the last several months, I just wanted to point out that this was posted when I was in the process of starting the small press that became Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, where we publish middle grade and young adult science fiction, fantasy, and mystery starring main characters of color. We’ve published five books so far, and I think you’ll love them. If you believe, as I do, that more stories like these are important—awesome fantastic adventures in which people of color are the stars—please check them out and share them with your friends.

***

When I was in the fourth grade, I always wondered why I wasn’t born Japanese. You see, back then (mid-80s), the news was always saying that the Japanese had the best education system in the world, and that Americans were falling behind. Given that my life goal at the time was to be the smartest kid in the world, I really, really wished that I had been born Japanese.

Nothing I could do about that, but I could do my geography project on Japan. (I was in the accelerated group, and we did countries of the world instead of state history in the fourth grade. I also did Australia and India.) But the only resources I could find in our relatively small school library were a decade-old encyclopedia and several books from the 50s. I ended up making a small English-Japanese dictionary with about five words (which I still have around here somewhere) for my project to go along with the report.

I can’t recall having read one single book from the time I was able to read until the time I graduated high school about any character who was from an Asian country or about an American whose family background was Asian, however. There just wasn’t anything like that available to me in small-town farm country in Illinois. I’m sure this is as much to do with librarian/teacher selection as it had to do with publishing availability, but that’s just the way things were.

Looking at the CCBC’s report from last year of books published in 2008, however, I’m not sure we’ve come very far from that. We’ve come a long way, yet how far is there to go?

Ever since Race Fail 09 (which I didn’t follow much of, but even reading a part of which was very thought-provoking), I’ve become even more aware of this issue as it relates to fantasy than I have before (even though before that, as an editor, I always tried to acquire books that were as diverse as possible, whether that meant magic-wielding kender or girls from all over the world battling vampiric fairies). I’ve pondered on it for several months, and it’s been great to see so many authors pondering on it in their blogs, too. Just in the last few days, I’ve found a couple great posts on it by authors R.J. Anderson and Mitali Perkins (Mitali has a lot of great insights into this, as you can see from her blog).

The biggest thing I’ve been pondering is that it seems to me that in children’s and YA fantasy, we’re probably at a smaller percentage of multicultural themes and characters than realistic books (note that I’m conflating race and culture here on purpose—I’m using race and culture in an and/or way). Note how in the CCBC report, they say that “A significant number—well over half—of the books about each broad racial/ethnic grouping are formulaic books offering profiles of various countries around the world.” Of the rest—and I’m just mostly guessing, because they didn’t break it down into realism and fantasy in the multicultural books—but of the rest, I would assume that a large portion of the multicultural books were either nonfiction or realistic fiction, rather than fantasy. I’m not even sure how they broke down “fantasy” and “multicultural”—fantasy with multicultural characters may or may not have been included in the “multicultural” count, for all I know.

My point is that in genre fiction, even more than in realistic fiction, I find (anecdotally—I haven’t actually counted) a significant lack of multicultural characters compared to the portion of the population that is actually multicultural. Given that such a large percentage of authors are white, are we perpetuating a culture of predominantly white fantasy readers because so many books are written from that point of view? Consider Mitali Perkins’ quote from Ursula Le Guin:

“Even when [my characters] aren’t white in the text, they are white on the cover. I know, you don’t have to tell me about sales! I have fought many cover departments on this issue, and mostly lost. But please consider that ‘what sells’ or ‘doesn’t sell’ can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If black kids, Hispanics, Indians both Eastern and Western, don’t buy fantasy—which they mostly don’t—could it be because they never see themselves on the cover?” [my emphasis]

As Ursula Le Guin pointed out many years ago and reinforced when Earthsea was submarined by SciFi, in fantasy worlds not based in our world, our characters can be any shade we like them to be–and the default doesn’t have to be white. (This is not for lack of trying on some authors’ parts—anecdotally, some authors have told me they’ve been asked to change the race of their characters because a white author writing from a black character’s point of view, for example, might be seen as offensive. So there is some ground to cover there.)

So where do we go? How do we become more inclusive in genre fiction for children and young adults? One answer, of course, is to champion the great genre books that are coming out right now with multicultural themes and/or characters—to all readers who might have an interest in them, not just in readers we assume might want to read them because they might have a cultural affinity with them (also something Mitali has covered more in depth; seriously, go read her blog). But it’s much more nuanced than that. What about those white writers who want to include interesting characters from interesting cultures not their own? There’s some great discussion of that in an old thread over at The Enchanted Inkpot that I’d recommend browsing (they’ve also discussed variations of that question since then, and some really interesting things completely unrelated to that, so check it out). Mitali also has a handy checklist of things to consider when writing race.

I think that the more we become aware of this issue as gatekeepers (publishing people, writers, librarians, teachers, parents—in general, the adults in a child’s life that recommend/create books), the more we’ll be in a position to remedy the problem. I’m pretty sure that there isn’t an intrinsic lack of interest in fantasy on the whole, among young people of color (obviously, individual tastes vary!)—but we might be able to interest and engage those readers more fully if fantasy grew to encompass the many and varied cultures and backgrounds this world has to offer. I’d love to see a revival of fairy tale retellings, for example, from Gullah or Creole cultures, or the incorporation of those tales into a modern urban fantasy. I’m excited to read Cindy Pon‘s Silver Phoenix and to see how she incorporates ancient Chinese culture. I just had a great time editing a book for an author of a fantasy based in ancient Korean roots. Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days, a retelling of a Grimm tale but set in a fantasy country inspired by Mongolia, is my favorite of her books (with Goose Girl running a close second). And where is the Latino fantasy? South America had a great magical realism movement, but what about fantasy that connects with a modern young Latino audience and others who are interested in reading about that culture? (Here is where I falter—I can’t think of a single example from that culture. Someone please point me in the right direction.)

ETA: Oo! Oo! I thought of one in a Latino tradition (but well-adapted to a completely original fantasy world): Flora Segunda! Which is one of my favorites of the last few years!

There’s so many rich cultural traditions to draw from, not just the medieval Western European trope we see so often, and I’m excited to see how many authors are engaging in that challenge, no matter their own culture.

As an editor, it’s made me even more aware of this issue in the stories I’m reading for both acquiring and editing purposes. As a writer (which I do occasionally, though often when I have enough work as an editor I find I go months between writing spurts) it’s made me look at my work in progress and find solutions for something that’s been nagging at me for a while: my protagonist has a friend who she wants to be more than just a friend. He’s kind of been this nebulous guy for whom I didn’t have a mental picture, but over the course of the last few months, I’ve really felt more and more that this guy needs to be Asian-American. Well, at least, the people in town think he’s Asian-American (heh, we come to find out he’s actually not even from this world, but you didn’t hear that from me; if I ever actually finish this book, erase that from your mind). Even before I read Mitali’s SLJ article, I wondered the same thing as she did: “When was the last time, on an American TV show or movie, you saw an Asian-American man as the object of attraction?” I hope that I can make this character live as the attractive, hot, intelligent, awesome good friend and love interest that he is in the life of my main character.

I’ve rambled on long enough—I just wanted to get my thoughts on this subject down somewhere and organize them. Well, at least get them down somewhere, I suppose—I’m not so sure on the organization part. But feel free to share your thoughts on this subject in the comments.

If so, show

- Stacy

I’ve decided that this needs to be my new motto. It’s related to “show, don’t tell,” but it’s a specific variety of the problem.

A common problem I see in manuscripts (many, many manuscripts, not necessarily ones I’m working on now) is a “tell” later in the manuscript that ought to be developed more as a “show” earlier. A great example of this is the relationship between two or more characters. If two characters are close (or if they fight, or whatever), don’t just tell the reader at a crucial time several chapters in that they’re close–have them interact in-scene, showing that they’re close in how they relate to each other. Then those “tell” moments later will come naturally and have a lot more emotional impact, both on the characters themselves and upon the reader.

So remember: If so, show.

My Conduit schedule, and other interesting goings-on that weekend

- Stacy

Note that Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary is the Guest of Honor at this year’s Conduit. Along with that, the Taylers are hosting a book launch party at the show for the latest Schlock book. Head on over to Howard’s site for all the details.

For you YA-type and writer-type people, here are some interesting panels that I won’t be on (the schedule isn’t final yet, from what I can tell, but here’s the latest info–go to Conduit’s site to be sure of the very latest news). (Also note that there will be a lot of geeky fun for all sorts of fannish things, which I won’t list here. Go look at the Conduit site for more info.)

Friday, May 22

  • Noon: Grammar, schmammar: When to follow the rules. And when to break them. (Michael R. Collings, Dave Wolverton, Kathleen Dalton Woodbury, Lee Allred, Anne Wingate, Berin Stephens)
  • 2:00 PM: How do you write a great “evil overlord”? (Clint Johnson, Ann Sharp, Roger White, Dave Wolverton, Howard Tayler)
  • 3:00 PM: Culture-Building in F&SF: How Do You Create a Viable and Consistent Culture? (John Brown, Lee Modesitt, Roger White, Dave Wolverton, Elisabeth Waters, Brandon Sanderson)
  • 5:00 PM: Howard Tayler Main Address: Practice Makes Perfect (I find it odd they have so many other things going on during the main address, but I’m new to this con, so… what do I know?)
  • 6:00 PM: Howard and Sandra Tayler Part 1: Structuring Creativity to Get Stuff Done Howard and Sandra will discuss how they structure their lives to fit all the business tasks, creative tasks, and family tasks into each day and into one house. They will also discuss how things worked differently in the earlier stages of their creative life and how they expect things to change in the years to come.

Saturday, May 23

  • 11 AM The Stenchless Chamberpot – how real should historical fiction or fantasy be?
  • (Ann Chamberlin, Jessica Day George, Clint Johnson, Robert J Defend, Dave Wolverton, Karen Webb)
  • Noon Howard and Sandra Tayler Part 2: The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Creative Business. Howard and Sandra will discuss the inner workings of their business and all the tasks necessary to keep it going. Accounting, Marketing, Networking, Shipping, Printing, and Comic Creation will all be discussed.
  • 3 PM The Twilight Books Phenomenon. Why are so many girls (and women) reading Stephenie Meyer?
  • (James Dashner, Nathan Shumate, Kathleen Dalton Woodbury, Suzy Gehring) I love that they have two guys on this panel about why girls and women are reading Stephenie Meyer!
  • 4-7 PM Howard Tayler Book Launch Party and Signing (Con Suite)
  • 4 PM The science of evil: why are villains the way they are (John Brown, Ann Sharp, Nathan Shumate, Eric Swedin, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Dan Wells)
  • 5 PM Main address–Dave Wolverton

Sunday, May 24

  • 10 AM Writing Red Herrings. Red herrings are standard in mysteries, but how can you be sure yours works? (Ann Chamberlin, Ann Sharp, Anne Wingate, Elisabeth Waters,Lee Modesitt, Paul Genesse)
  • 2 PM My Favorite Books. What books are writers reading? (Jessica Day George, Howard Tayler, Paul Genesse, Brandon Sanderson, Lee Allred)

And here’s my schedule. Note that one of the panels will be on worldbuilding for children and YA, so you’ll have a chance to get a taste of my opinions for the class I’m planning for June.

Friday, May 22

  • 3:00 PM What is a YA/MG editor/publisher looking for? (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Stacy Whitman, Dan Willis)
  • 4:00 PM It’s not your parents’ fiction. Writing for the YA/Children’s Market (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Stacy Whitman, Brandon Sanderson, Heather Horrock)

Saturday, May 23

  • Noon What can writers learn from Harry Potter? (Suzy Gehring, Stacy Whitman, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Eric James Stone, Jason Anderson, Brandon Sanderson)
  • 2 PM How to publish and market your YA/MG book (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Rebecca Shelley, Julie Wright, Dan Willis, Stacy Whitman, Sandra Tayler) (I don’t know about the other panelists, but I’m coming to this one to talk about marketing, because there are several other panels already about the publishing side of things.)
  • 4 PM “The next . . .” Publishers are looking for the next Harry Potter or Twilight. How can you get your book sold in spite of overblown expectations? (Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Aprilynne Pike, Stacy Whitman, Robert J Defendi, Lee Modesitt)
  • 6 PM Worldbuilding for YA/MG writers (Stacy Whitman, Mette Ivie Harrison, Jessica Day George, Dan Willis, Aleta Clegg)

I think that’s all of mine. If all else fails, look at the schedule to be sure.

When do you need a freelance editor in the submission process? Or do you?

- Stacy 4 Comments

I recently updated my Critiques page. The more general question of when or if a writer needs a freelance editor feels like the overarching reasons for the changes that I made, so I thought I’d address them in a post. Bear in mind that this mostly addresses the editing of full manuscripts; submission packet critiques obviously are a different situation entirely, but the the principles of utilizing all the resources out there before submitting remains the same.

Sometimes I feel like writers are approaching me too early in the process. While I absolutely love to help new authors to succeed, I’m not sure if my paid services are the best way for me to help someone who can still benefit from the large number of free resources out there for writers. That’s why I keep this blog, after all–to help demystify publishing and to give advice where necessary (in addition to connecting with the children’s lit blogosphere and other personal reasons). Writing groups (consisting of trusted professionals, readers and writers whose feedback will fit the story you want to tell and the market you want to reach) can be a huge resource, as are blogs and Twitter streams of all the editors, agents, and authors out there (and there are a great number of them). The SCBWI is a huge resource both online (email listservs, the SCBWI website, and online writing groups–especially for people who aren’t physically near a good writing group locally) and in person (conferences, local chapter meetings, and writing groups).  Local colleges might have a class or two in children’s literature that you can take to improve your knowledge of the genre and to improve writing habits, editing skills, and butt-in-chair practice.

Once those resources have been exhausted, and you’ve done all you can do with your manuscript–you’ve revised it yourself, you’ve workshopped it with your writing group, you’ve had trusted alpha and beta readers (not your mom, spouse, or child unless you know they’ll give you solid feedback when something isn’t working) read it all at once rather than a chapter at a time like with a writing group, and between each stage, you’ve let it sit for a while, so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes yourself–that’s when a freelance editor comes in.

I freely admit my services aren’t always necessary, or even most of the time. The way that the market is currently contracting right now, I can be of most help to writers who have been submitting, but have been getting feedback from editors or agents saying that the book was good, but not great, or that they felt it needed more work that you feel would benefit from a professional editor’s opinion, after exhausting all those free or inexpensive options out there.

There have also been times when I’ve worked with writers who already have agents, whose agents are excited about the book but don’t feel it’s up to publishers’ demanding needs in this competitive acquisition market and want to be sure that the book is fully ready before sending it back to editors who expressed interest.

But the main thing I want to stress is that there are a lot of really great free resources out there to help you before you consider hiring an editor. Sure, it might seem like I’m probably shooting myself in the foot on getting paid work, but I think we’d both be able to benefit more from the experience if you felt like you were truly getting your money’s worth–and for that to happen, hopefully the tips here and on the critique page will help with that.

Once again, I’ll also emphasize that often I can tell in the first three chapters whether a book will garner my attention further and a number of major overall issues. Obviously, I can’t give you full feedback on plot development and characterization, etc., from three chapters, but I usually have  a good idea of whether a story is being set up in a way that will make me want to continue reading. My submission packet critique service, many authors have told me, have made a big difference in how they view the rest of their manuscript. So if you’re low on funds and want a professional’s opinion, that is a great way to get a feel for whether my services are right for you. (Note also that if after a three-chapter critique you decide you want me to work on the whole manuscript, that $50 fee from the first critique applies as a discount to the full manuscript.)

In a full manuscript, I get more into the nitty gritty of plot development–whether an ending is earned, whether more foreshadowing is needed, if certain scenes are necessary (and suggestions on possibilities for changes)–pacing, characterization, characters themselves (number of characters, whether certain characters are memorable enough or necessary, etc.), worldbuilding (in the case of genre fiction, this is essential), setting, and all those other things that come together to make a good book. So a freelance editor is definitely useful if you feel like your book just needs that extra something that only an informed, experienced professional opinion can give you.

But consider all your resources when considering a freelancer, so that you truly can know that it’s the right time in the life of your manuscript to get that extra help.