Category: Blog

 

I’m dead chuffed today to be the last stop on Emma Pass’ The Fearless blog tour. If you haven’t seen a copy of  Emma’s brilliant YA post-apocalyptic thriller yet, this is what it’s all about:

“The Fearless. An army, powered by an incredible new serum that makes each soldier stronger, sharper, faster than their enemies. Intended as a force for good, the serum has a terrible side effect – anyone who takes it is stripped of all humanity, empathy, love. And as the Fearless sweep through the country, forcing the serum on anyone in their path, society becomes a living nightmare.

Cass remembers the night they passed through her village. Her father was Altered. Her mother died soon after. All Cass has left is her little brother – and when Jori is snatched by the Fearless, Cass must risk everything to get him back.”

Emma Pass has been making up stories for as long as she can remember. Her debut novel, Acid, is out now from Corgi/Random House in the UK, and from Delacorte in the US.  It won the 2014 North East Teenage Book Award, was shortlisted for the Doncaster Book Award, nominated for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal and has been longlisted for the 2014 Branford Boase Award and a Silver Inky Award in Australia. Her second novel, The Fearless, is also out now in the UK from Corgi/Random House and will be published in the US in early 2015 by Delacorte. By day, she works as a library assistant and lives with her husband and crazy greyhound G-Dog in the North East Midlands.

Gettin’ Down Wit Da Kids, Yo… Or, er, Not: How To Create Authentic Teenage Characters

 So you want to write a novel. A novel for teens, with teenage characters. And you want to make them as authentic as possible – living, breathing teenagers who jump off the page; who will make your readers gasp aloud in surprise and delight and say, ‘That’s me! This author is writing about me!‘

But how?

 Do you go out and find a group of teens and eavesdrop on them in the hope of picking up some of the current lingo, then pepper your manuscript with it so your characters sound ‘real’? Do you create a character who is A TeenagerÔ,  complete with An AttitudeÔ, who Argues With Their ParentsÔ and… you get the idea.

Anyway, the answer is, no. Please, don’t!!

Aside from the fact that eavesdropping on anybody is a bad idea, while it might be tempting to include the latest slang in your dialogue, language is always evolving, and those ‘in’ words you’re using are probably already falling out of favour. Plus, if you’re lucky enough to get a book deal, publishing is a long process, and by the time the book comes out that dialogue will make it look as dated as a handlebar moustache and flared trousers. And ‘being a teenager’ is not a condition, with a list of symptoms you need to check off in order to be able to diagnose it.

It’s easy to underestimate teenagers, stereotype them or write them off as all being the same. In reality, there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ teenager, just as there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ adult. Your teen characters are people, and it’s important to treat them as such.

So make your teen characters authentic by respecting them. Find out who they are and what makes them tick. What are their quirks, their hopes, their fears? What do they love? What do they hate? How do they relate to the people around them? What’s happened in their past that’s shaped them into who they are now? And most importantly of all, why are they in this story and what do they want? What do they need? By being true to your characters and your story – the two, after all, are completely intermeshed – your characters will leap off the page for all the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.

 

The Fearless is out now from Corgi/Random House Children’s Publishers (UK) and early 2015 from Delacorte (US).

Check out Emma’s website at www.emmapass.com or look her up on Facebook. You can also chat to Emma on Twitter. Emma is a regular contributor to The Lucky 13s and Author Allsorts.

 

 

 

Last day of the Now You See Me blog tour and I’m over at the fabulous Daisy Chain Book Reviews talking about the difference between truth and fiction.

 

 

 

 

Happy book birthday to me! To celebrate I’m doing a double whammy on the penultimate day of my blog tour. Over at UKYA, I’m writing about my top five UKYA contemporary thrillers, while at Author Allsorts, the lovely Alex Campbell is interviewing me about Now You See Me.

 

 

Day four of my blog tour, and this time I’m being hosted and interviewed by the lovely Lucy at ChooseYA. Had a lot of fun answering some fabulous questions.

 

 

 

Day three of the Now You See Me blog tour and I’m over at the brilliant Bookbabblers with an extract from the book. And if you like what you read, you can now purchase a copy over at Amazon – just £2.56 if you have a Kindle!

 

 

 

 

Today I’m over at the fabulous Book Angel Booktopia talking about love – or the lack of it.

PS. Copies of Now You See Me are now available from Usborne here.

 

 

The Now You See Me blog tour starts today in the run-up to publication on May 1^st, with the wonderful Project UKYA hosting my guest post on Writing Suspense.

I’ll be guest blogging at throughout the coming week. Please feel free to pop over and add your comments. And don’t forget there’s still time to enter the free Goodreads giveaway with a chance to win one of ten copies of Now You See Me.

For more details, or to grab yourself a copy ahead of the 1st May publication day, check out the Now You See Me page over at Usborne.

Or at least a free book. The lovely people over at Usborne are offering 10 free copies  of NOW YOU SEE ME over on Goodreads for the lucky winners of their giveaway. Enter here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/86736-now-you-see-me.

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been tagged as part of the Writing Process blog tour by my super writing friend Wendy Storer, author of two teen novels: Where Bluebirds Fly and Bring Me Sunshine, and finalist in the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition. Her next YA novel, How to be Lucky, will be published later this year. Check her out at http://wendystorer.blogspot.com.

 

Anyway, the idea is that you answer four questions, then tag your next victims… sorry, I mean participants. So here goes:

1. What am I working on?

Hmmm… well, a number of things. I’ve just done one set of edits on my second YA novel and am waiting for the next round of revisions to come back from my editor. In the meantime I’ve dusted off a middle grade (age 9-12) novel I wrote a few years back – I’m hoping  with the current upsurge in interest in writing for this age group that I may be able to find it a home. And when I’m not actually writing, I’m busy promoting my soon-to-be-published YA novel: Now You See Me. Lots to do before the 1^st May launch date!

2. How does my work differ from others in the genre?

Big question! If you take YA as a whole, well, we could be here all day. So let’s restrict ourselves to YA thrillers.  I think one of the distinguishing features of Now You See Me – apart from the fact that it’s inspired  by something that actually happened – is that there is no love story. Though there are many wonderful books out there with romance at their heart, I wanted to write a novel for teens that has a slightly different dynamic. Why? Because there’s a lot more to life – and your teens – than falling in love, and I want there to be books that reflect that.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Quite simply, I love exciting, gripping stories, with characters that I can really root for. When I’m reading or watching a drama, I’m gripped by suspense and twists and wondering what will happen next. So I try to offer this in my own novels.

4. How does my writing process work?

Ha! *grimaces* Well, there’s a great deal of procrastination , but when I do get down to it I find I work best with a decent outline of what I’m planning to write. So I’ll kick off with an idea, and I’ll gradually flesh it out with things like plot and character questions, mind maps and tools like Scrivener, which is much more flexible than Word and allows you to shift chapters around easily. I try and sketch out the main story arc and subdivide that into chapters before I tackle the first draft.

Then it’s a question of refining and asking myself questions as I go along. One of the most useful things I’ve found when I’m stuck or have fallen into a particularly deep plot hole, is to journal. Open up a new Word doc, summarise the issue and how you feel about it, then free associate all the possible solutions or ways round the problem. It never fails to throw you some way of climbing your way back out the hole.

The bit of the writing process I like best is round about the third draft, when you’ve got all the structure in place and can concentrate on tinkering with the words and sentences. I love sweating the small stuff.

Okay, so that’s it from me. I’m passing you  into the extremely capable hands of my three nominated YA writers, who’ve kindly supplied their bios and pics. Check out their blogs to find out more.

 

 

Caroline Green’s first YA novel, Dark Ride won the RONA Young Adult Book of the Year and the Waverton Good Read Award. Cracks and Hold Your Breath have been shortlisted for nine awards, including: The Amazing Book Award; The Catalyst Book Award The Leeds Book Award; The Hampshire Book Award; Sefton Super Reads, the Oldham Book Award, The Stockport Book Award and the Portsmouth Book Award. She is the Writer in Residence at East Barnet School in north London. Her latest book, Fragments, was launched in March. She is also a freelance writer on health and science matters, and has written several non-fiction books.

Follow her on Twitter @carolinesgreen or check out www.carolinegreen.net.

 

 

Emma Shevah is half-Irish and half-Thai, and grew up in London. She has travelled across, got lost in, and lived in a number of countries. She holds a BA in English Literature and Philosophy from Nottingham University, and an MA with Distinction in Creative and Professional Writing from Brunel. She has been writing a blog for The Independent since January 2007 and has written articles and op-eds for other newspapers. Her debut novel, Dream On, Amber, was published by Chicken House in March 2014. She currently lives in north London with her four children, dog and baby tortoise.

Check her out at www.emmashevah.com

 

 

 

Eve Harvey is currently a full time writer. This sounds much grander than it actually is since it mostly involves drinking lots of coffee and looking like a bag lady. She was, until recently, a kids bookseller and misses it so much she is currently merchandising her home bookshelves with 3 for 2 offers and recommends. Her kids are unimpressed.

Eve blogs over at www.eveharvey.com

 

Back from the wilds of France, and feeling almost lightheaded with the glory of having an internet connection again. Not to mention the excitement at finding these waiting for me on my doorstep.