Young adult novels
An Oxford undergraduate, Samantha Shannon, has just been offered a six figure, three book deal by Bloomsbury. Such news can make us older writers gnash our teeth with envy. However, I was heartened. This young writer does sound like the real McCoy (she wrote for 15 hours a day at the age of 15; a delicious-sounding writer-nerd). And it is good to know young people are reading. In fact, publishers are falling over themselves in a desperate search to fill voracious teen readers’ bookshelves with new ‘Twilight’-type fantasy series. It’s an opportunity for all writers who are keen to try their hand in this genre.
This week I gave a short critique of a TV director’s first novel, a fantasy adventure for young adults. Used to scriptwriting, he wanted to know if he was on the right track in this genre. It is amazing what the first 50 pages of a manuscript divulges. In this case, the writer had excellent dialogue (as one would expect from a screenwriter), too much undramatised exposition (ditto), extremely good action sequences (ditto) – but he had fallen into many of the bear-traps that beginners very often do.
- His first three chapters were chock full of backtext (back-story).
- He had explained too much, leaving little for the reader’s imagination to work on.
- He had several lead characters ( a warrior gang), rather than one main protagonist.
- He hadn’t followed the cardinal rule for the genre – that action comes pretty thick and fast, starting from page one.
It’s a bit like working on a jigsaw. As each piece comes clear (and an outsider’s insight can help), you are a step closer to being able to produce the perfect end product. It is enormously important to read the strongest examples of the genre in which you are working. And when you read those books make sure you employ your most active, critical eye: you are on the hunt for effective techniques.
Wanda Whiteley, former Publishing Director at HarperCollins, is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Manuscriptdoctor.co.uk, a literary consultancy
I don't think fantasy will ever completely run out of steam, because it's the ultimate escapism isn't it? Escape from our real world. It can get as gritty as it likes, because at the end of the day we can close the book and get back to our world without feeling the need to draw oo many parallels. In this way, fantasy is also the perfect genre for making salient, valid points about the world we do live in, purely by playing things out in a world we don't live in. As for the YA market, I think it's potentially the most important market there is. If you can capture the imagination of someone when they are ready to decide what pastimes they will carry on into adulthood, it's pretty vital for the literary industry that you do! I just think that there isn't enough 'smart' fiction out there for the YA market; there's too much fluffy romance and not enough all-out action (at least on the forefront of the shelves), but as the YA market gets bigger this is bound to alter, as more writers bring their ideas for the market into play. So, I'm really happy for this hardworking writer and I think she deserves her success, I sincerely hope she is well-received!
Hi Wanda,
Another interesting post. I know that we have had a great run of fantasy novels in a short period of tiem and a great run of movies related to either modern day fantasy such as Twilight and Harry Potter and we've had Lord of the Rings translated onto the big screen and the Hobbit coming up. But is there not a risk that by the time fantasy novels being written at present are not going to be at the forefront of what the general public want to read?
As someone who is writing in this genre, I am heartened to see that this is still an area that agents and publishers are investing in.
I know that Samantha has been 'dubbed the new JK Rowling' in some quarters and while I think that is fantastic, I sort-of don't really buy into the idea of being the 'new this, or the new that' partly because I think it is unfair on the recipient of such a claim. Harry Potter as we all know received widespread acclaim and popularity It would be fantastic if that could be achieved again, but I say let her write her books, inspire young adults and other alike and see where it takes her.
I will of course be buying her books when they hit the shelves, and in the mean time working on my own!
Your four points mentioned above are some of the things I am looking out for while re-drafting.