Delving Into Point of View

It can be hard to get inside your character's head. Sometimes the plot idea comes first and the main character seems a bit fuzzy, or you can't quite decide who they'll be. And because character backstory, motivations and actions/decisions all feed into the plot, if you go ahead and develop your plot without doing the work on your character, you end up with someone who doesn't feel "real". Her/his voice is bland, actions seem inconsistent, motivations unclear - all this leads to the reader not being fully engaged with the story.
It's almost a rule in fiction - if the reader doesn't care what happens to the main character, they won't want to read the book. I say almost a rule because characters like James Bond work differently, but mostly your main character needs to be strong and engaging.
Then comes point of view. Beyond whether you tell your story in first person or third person (intimate/subjective - there are different terms for this), if you are using that close POV, the reader wants to feel they are right there with the character, thinking their thoughts, feeling their emotions, experiencing their life with its highs and lows.
Sometimes this inner bonding with your character comes easily, maybe because they are part of you, or express a part of you that you explore via the story. You hear their voice, seem to know them intimately before you've written more than a dozen pages, understand their strengths and failings and how these will figure in your story.
But more often, you have to make them up, and then make them real. Masha Hamilton (at the Pima Writers' Workshop) said that probably only 10% of what you know about your character will appear on the page. The rest is all the stuff you need to know and understand about them, their life, their backstory, in order to be able to write about them convincingly.
There is a trap within first person narrative. It's the assumption that once you "get" the voice of that narrator, the rest will fall into place. If you are able to write your character onto the page as you go along, great. But you have to do a lot of writing to get there.
It's easier to do the background stuff first, even if it looks like a lot of extra work.
I see a lot of students struggling with POV, and ending up with pieces of writing or chapters where everything seems to happen at a distance, as if the narrator is just reporting, or it's the author who is doing all the work and the narrator is looking over her/his shoulder. A simple sign that this is happening is when the narrator refers to their mother as "my Mum" (as in - My Mum said, "Where are you going?"). When you are right in the POV, your narrator would usually just say Mum - Mum said, "Where are you going?".
This is where I am right now. I am up to Rewrite Number 8 on a manuscript that I haven't looked at in nearly a year, and I've kind of lost my grip on who my characters are, why they're doing what they do in the story. I also need to do a lot more work on my other major characters, to avoid them being one-dimensional and poorly motivated.
My mantra is: Every character has their own journey in the story.
And I need to know what it is. Out with the notebook and pen, and away I go.

Website Problems

I've been having some annoying problems with my site in the past few weeks - mainly that although I can update and change/add text, I can't upload any photos or book cover images. They upload from my end but when I look at the site, they don't appear. I've tried everything - reloading, taking other images out, disarming the firewall (temporarily) and, finally, completely uploading the site from another computer.
No luck. So I am forced to conclude that it's my ISP that is the problem. I am supposed to have 10MB of space, and you would think that if I had somehow exceeded my limit, then taking material and images off the site would make room for the new ones. When I called my ISP Tech Help, they said they had no way of checking if I was over the limit and even if I was, I couldn't buy any more!
To say I am not happy about this (especially with a new book just out and some great photos to add) is an understatement. So I've gone away and paid for hosting with another company, and in a few days will undertake the big move. A bit daunting as I am not a website expert - I tend to stick with what I know and keep my fingers crossed.
Stay tuned for screams of frustration (or, hopefully, cries of joy).

Chili Again

My recipe - I warn you that this is just a good estimate. I tend to cook without recipes for things I'm familiar with, or I try to reproduce something I've eaten in a restaurant by guessing. Not always successfully.
So I'll give this a name (because I like titles):
WRITER'S HOT FINGERS CHILI
500gm good beef mince - brown it in a non-stick saucepan and then drain off the fat.
Add 1 large chopped onion, cook for a couple of minutes. Then make a hole in the mince and onion so you can put the following onto the hot surface of the pan: 1 tsp chili powder, 1-2 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp minced ginger, 1 tsp cumin, 2 tbsp tomato paste.
Cook the spices etc for half a minute, stirring so the paste doesn't burn, then mix into the mince. Add one tin of chopped tomatoes (can add two if you really like lots of tomatoes in it). I also add stock powder - about 1 tsp (then you can add salt later if you think it needs it). Cook for about 15 minutes, add a tin of kidney beans (what size is up to you), and cook another 30 minutes.
I serve it with rice, but you can serve it any way you like - rice, burritos, tacos, etc.
If you want it really hot, you can increase the chili powder, but I find chili can be vicious in powder form - it's often stronger than you think!
And like curry, it improves with age, so leftovers next day might be even better.

Hot Chili on a Cold Night

It seems everyone has their own special recipe for Chili (if they eat it). Mine has onions and kidney beans in it, and plenty of hot chili. But while in Tombstone, I spotted a Tombstone Chili Mix. Having just visited Boot Hill Cemetery, I was a bit reluctant, but Meg assured me she had tried it and could vouch for its tastiness. So I brought some home, and even declared it to Customs and Quarantine. It passed.
It's been very cold here in Melbourne this week. Frost and ice. I keep waiting for it to snow. So it was a good time to break out the chili mix. The recipe was quite simple but required "1 12oz bottle of cheap Mexican beer". There is no such thing in Melbourne, so I bought a bottle of Sol beer (cheaper than Corona) for $3.29, and prepared to get cooking.
Did it taste good? Yes, it did. Did it feed 6 Gringos, as the packet suggested? No. It fed two hungry gringos with a bit left over.
Did it warm us up without stripping the lining off our stomachs? Yes, very definitely.
So, if you get the chance, try some Tombstone Chili. Wyatt Earp's Original.
My other souvenir from Tombstone, also thanks to Wyatt Earp whose stamp of authority is on it, is a poster that warns "UNATTENDED & UNRULY CHILDREN WILL BE ARRESTED AND SOLD AS SLAVES".
I'm thinking of making copies and posting them around my local supermarket.

Recent bloggings

My friend, Tracey, has spent the weekend at the NatCon (SF and fantasy convention) in Melbourne, and has posted highlights of the sessions she attended on her blog: Speculating About Fiction.
I've also been following the blog of a children's editor, which has some interesting comments and explanations about the world of editing and publishing: Editorial Anonymous.
I had to replace Miss Snark with something!
Tracey has also inspired me to start a mini-blog - we are using them for tiny poems and images, as a way to keep the creative juices flowing. You might like to try one too!
Playing with Words and Quicksilver.

The publishing journey of a story

A new book comes out, and after you launch it into the world, you have to then jump on board and keep madly paddling (yes, a bit of a strained metaphor - never mind). Your buying audience can't purchase a book they don't know about!
When I talk about publishing, what people are interested in, I find, are stories about books that sink or swim in interesting ways. I think it illustrates what publishing can be - yes, a business, but often things can happen to your books that you never anticipate.
My picture book, Wednesday Was Even Worse, was a CBC Notable Book, yet 18 months after publication, the small publisher decided to close down. While quite a few of their titles were sold on to a big publisher, Wednesday was not one of them, so it was remaindered. I bought as many copies as I could afford (trust me, you always wish you'd bought more!) and requested my rights back. Later, when I'd sold all my copies, I spoke to the illustrator and she said she'd be happy for me to reprint the book myself. Except somewhere along the line, paperwork had exchanged hands and she doesn't have the right to give me that permission.
Big publisher doesn't want to reprint (who would, five years later?). Stalemate. It seems I finally have to let this book go and either submit text only to new publishers, or just keep my few remaining copies as souvenirs.
A situation I imagine quite a few authors find happens when out-of-print clauses come into operation, but when the text is illustrated, things get complicated. Nevertheless, I was glad to see Simon & Schuster appear to be backing down on (what I call) their infinity clause.
I digress.
The other end of this publishing journey is the story that will not die. Or the story (in this case, a short story) that keeps being reprinted. Quite a few years ago, a small feminist crime publisher was producing anthologies of short crime fiction. I had published two stories with her, and she asked for a story for the next collection that had "lots of dialogue please - I have too many exposition-heavy stories". I wrote a story called Fresh Bait and, to date, as well as the original anthology, it's been published four times elsewhere and a young film-maker has written a script from it and is planning to make the short film this year.
You just never know what is going to happen to a particular story or poem or novel. And that's why you have to get expert help with your contracts! It's not the everyday nuts and bolts of the publishing industry you're guarding against, it's the weird and wonderful that might happen in the future.

Style Queen launched!

A challenge to strike fear into the heart of most children's authors - capture and hold the attention of 130 kids at once! Altona Primary School here in Melbourne kindly agreed to "host" the launch of Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!), and their 5th and 6th graders piled into the school's multi-purpose room. Purpose today? Launch and talk.
I explained to the kids that normally at a launch we have a big celebration with champagne, and I was a little worried at the number of kids whose eyes lit up at the thought of a glass of bubbly or two! But it was more likely the mention of the word party.
After a lovely intro by student Sarah, Federal pollie Nicola Roxon made the official launch speech and then it was over to me. I told them what the book was about, and described how a verse novel works. When I said, 'Like lots of little chapters' I could see heads nodding. Then I read a few poems to give them an idea of what happens. After a few questions, I then did an 'author talk' about how a book gets published.
It's always fun to show them drafts of stories with crossings-out and scribbles everywhere, and then to show stages of galley proofs, with more scribbles and notes. Also my chapter books with illustrations go through several stages, with roughs and final pics. I have lots of research stuff to show as well, including lots of pirate pictures and examples.
The students asked some really good questions, including 'Why are there often blank pages at the back of a book?' I threw that one over to Christine Alesich, my editor at Penguin, so she could explain the whole thing about multiples and big sheets of paper in printing.
It was a fun morning, and the next day, I was able to go back so a lot of the kids could get a copy of the book (signed by me!).
APS has a great reading and literacy program, and it shows in the students' interest in books and reading, and their thoughtful questions.

It's been an odd week of reading - I finished off an old Tami Hoag mystery, still musing over her continual 'head jumping' in terms of point of view, and wondering if the average reader would notice it happening. I leapt into my new Sarah Dessen YA novel - The Truth About Forever - and enjoyed it immensely. She has such rich characters, and even though on the surface there might not be a huge amount happening in terms of action, underneath everything is working very deeply.
I've also been reading the Poets & Writers magazine, especially the ads. There are so many MFA writing courses in the US, and so many conferences. I keep asking: Why doesn't that happen here? (The last time I asked that question, I ended up organising one myself. Hmmm.)

One Tucson thing I will miss

The Santa Catalina Mountains (I was somewhere up on top there yesterday). I love the way the shadows move across the mountains as the day goes on. Every time you look up, the mountains look different. Around 4-5pm is the best time. (This is about 6.30pm.)

Mt Lemon - 7500 feet up

I love waterfalls, but at this time of year in Tucson there aren't any. I did see a great water track down the side of a mountain that will be a spectacular waterfall when it rains, but it's not quite the same. However, I also like mountains and rocks, so I drove my rental car up Mt Lemon yesterday, and took lots of photos. (I am getting good at driving on the wrong side of the road but I do keep trying to get in the passenger side of the car every now and then.)

Up on the mountain it is about 10 degrees C cooler than down in the desert, and it's fascinating to see the changes in vegetation as you go up. First there's saguaro cactus and desert plants, then there's scrubby trees (many were dead, because there is a drought here and people have told me the cacti are suffering too), then there are wonderful spruce forests.

In Australia, you can smell eucalypts in the bush; here it's the the smell of spruce, and it is different from Australian pines. I contemplating walking - hiking, everyone calls it here - but the bookshops were calling me and it was a bit hot. Maybe next time.

I managed to fit in three bookshops yesterday afternoon, but how I will carry my bags today is another question. I have discovered that my suitcase is basically stuffed (as in broken from being bashed around by the airline luggage department) but I think it will make it home OK. As long as no one drops it from forty feet up.

I feel like I only just got here and now it's time to leave. But I'm already lining up which books I'll read on the plane. So much to choose from...

Has your book been beeped?

One thing I love about Tucson is the bookshops. Probably it's the same in every US city - YA and children's paperbacks for $3.99-$5.99, where in Australia we are paying $11.95-$16.95 (or more) for a similar or same thing. So you can understand why I go a bit berserk. I already have bought more books than I should have, but it's hard to stop! And when I can visit not only Borders and Barnes & Noble and independent Antigones, but also Bookmans secondhand bookstores (3 of them), it gets really hard to know when to stop. I have to keep reminding myself that I have to carry all of them home.
At one of the large stores, I met someone (who shall not be named) who explained to me why books don't stay on the shelves very long. Apparently every month employees go around with a scanner and scan all the books and the ones that beep get taken off and sent back to the publisher. Each book is programmed in the computer as to when it was put on the shelf, so that 90 day shelf life we hear about really is exactly 90 days in most cases!
What's worse is that paperbacks don't even get sent back to the publisher because the freight costs aren't worth it. They rip off the covers and send them back and the rest of the book gets dumped in the rubbish.
If a book is selling well, it gets to stay longer, but we all know how many books are published every month here and what authors are competing against - well, they're competing against sheer volume before anything else! Now I have to do some sleuthing back in Australia and find out if this is common practice in bookshops there.

Tombstone

This is the Boot Hill Cemetery at Tombstone. The only grave in the whole place that has the traditional concrete around it with a headstone is that of the guy who spent many years restoring the cemetery - Emmett Nunnelley.
It's funny - you see all the movies that feature Tombstone and hear so much about it that it starts to seem like just a story, but when you get there and see the cemetery and the graves of the guys who were killed at the OK Corrall, you realise that it did actually happen, just not with Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell.

The town itself is, of course, very much geared to tourists. Meg and I saw the Helldorado Wild West Show that had more bad jokes in it than any show in the US, I think, but it was so bad it was quite funny (which was their aim!). There are lots of shops to browse in, some museums and some saloons for eating in. Including one called Big Nose Kate's. I thought it was all good value, unlike Bisbee which was a little further down the road and was kind of disappointing. It's an old mining town, and maybe we missed the best parts, but it seemed a bit rundown and a lot of the shops were more like junk shops than anything. It didn't help that some of them were closed. But it was cooler up there - Bisbee is in the hills.

Sonora Desert Museum

This morning I crawled out of bed at the horrible hour of 5.30am, to get to the Desert Museum before it got too hot. Once the heat sets in, a lot of the animals in this wonderful outdoor "zoo" hide in the shade and sleep.

This time, although the mountain lion was nowhere to be seen, I did see the bobcats (such big ears!) and the coyote. The otters, as usual, were having a marvelous time in the water, the beaver was chewing determinedly on his piece of wood and the humming birds whirred around us like large, fast-moving moths, so close we could feel the wind from their tiny wings.

Even the snakes were moving around. In the walk-through bird aviary, the birds came close for great photos, and the mice ran around stealing bird food. In one corner we saw a snake that had nabbed a mouse for breakfast.

I did see a rabbit in the distance, but whether it was a jack rabbit with those amazing huge ears or not, I couldn't tell.

Pima Writers' Workshop - notes of note

Somebody is still alert in the heat. It's around 100 degrees F today, but I see the forecast in Melbourne is for rain and 12 degrees C this week!
Some quotes from the conference (paraphrased from my notes):
Think about how each character in your story or novel sees and experiences things - they will all see the same thing differently - Laila Halaby
A lot of query letters don't effectively convey conflict, plot and characters - if you can't get this down in a query, it often means your book isn't ready - Stephen Barbara, Donald Maass Agency
What will define the next ten years of publishing? Distribution. A number of large book distributors have already gone out of business, making it hard for the small presses - Kate Gale, Red Hen Press
Agents like writers who are well-informed about the publishing business - you can learn by reading industry magazines, websites and blogs - Emmanuelle Alspaugh, agent with Wendy Sherman Assoc.
All of the primary characters in your novel should change in some way during the story, not just your main character - Masha Hamilton
Have an ugly baby - Alan Woodman
(What Alan really meant was write an ugly first draft - once it's out there on the page, it can grown and mature and become more beautiful with rewriting. Get it out there as ugly, then you can improve on it.)

Pima Writers' Workshop - last day

This is the panel for the final session today - not yet "at the table" are Richard Garcia and Allen Woodman. This is just as the "Keeping the Faith" session was beginning, with Meg Files at the podium. We were asked to give one last piece of writing advice for everyone to take away - as Meg said, after a great conference you can end up feeling down, maybe thinking it's too hard once the excitement and energy has worn off. So this session was about how to keep going, write no matter what, and persist.
The one thing that came through for me over the three days was about being professional, not just in the way you present yourself to agents and publishers, but also in the way you think about yourself as a writer. Take your passion seriously, give it the time and energy it needs, keep reading and learning, and yes, keep the faith.
Too often we put other things ahead of writing. Yes, life does have a funny habit of taking over. Yet at least two of the published writers who were the guest speakers mentioned that they had to get up at 4am to write their novels - they made a commitment to that time before the day started to work and write. I think I could do that if I had to - even though at 4am I'm almost comatose. But if I had absolutely no other time?
I'm lucky that I can carve out 2-3 hours here and there in my week to write, but it is so easy to allow other things to intrude - to allow other people to consume your time and energy, to put errands or cleaning or even a favourite TV show before writing, to think I'll just do my emails first and two hours later your time is gone. Heather Sellar's new book Chapter After Chapter says "Writers will not finish their novels if they say Yes to other things." And it's true.
Self publishing came up quite a few times during the weekend, and for some people it is a perfect option. But sometimes, as Allan Woodman pointed out, you can be in too much of a hurry to be published. Your book is getting rejected so you say, "I have to get it out there where readers can discover it", but the truth is, you might be getting rejected because your writing and your book are just not ready yet.
It was interesting for me to hear so much from Kate Gale about small independent presses and university presses. It is a whole different level of publishing which we don't really have in Australia. We do have a few tiny independents, and one or two university presses, but not like in the US. There are many fine writers whose work is not going to have a huge audience, and the "small" option is a real option.
But as Stephen Barbara (agent from Donald Maass Agency) said, "Don't quit your day job until you have a large audience for your work." That means a sustained audience who will continue to buy everything you publish, so that you have a substantial, ongoing royalty income.
Not a hugely happy note to end on, but a practical, honest one that serves us well.

Pima Writers' Workshop

Day Two of the conference has just finished - one more day to go. We are packing in so much, and I am learning lots of new stuff. For example, I did a workshop with Richard Garcia yesterday on the Deep Image - which I thought was going to be about imagery, but it was actually about a kind of poetry called Deep Image that uses the body and nature. I wrote a very weird poem about being a whale (kind of). I also attended Kate Gale's double session on The Inside Story of Publishing. I wondered if it would be interesting - how much more do I want or need to know about the subject? But she is part of Red Hen Press, an independent small press, and her information and stories about small press publishing were great - and very useful. She talked about very detailed things such as how they sell their books, and how they work with writers, and also stuff on self promotion. In fact, so much information that I'm really glad I took lots of notes.
On the first day, Stephen Barbara from the Donald Maass Agency talked about what agents do, submissions, queries and all kinds of agenty things. I thought it was interesting that his agency has boilerplates already negotiated with the large publishers. As he said, authors without representation who get the publisher's boilerplate are really starting at a disadvantage.
The very first session (yes, I'm working backwards) was Laila Halaby talking about truth in fiction - what is truth, what is real? And how do we create the real in something that is created out of our own imagination? She made good points about accuracy, and about the reader's trust in the writer.
Tonight, it was my turn to read, along with Donna Steiner and Richard Garcia. Donna read a wonderful non-fiction piece about a jeweller's loupe, and Richard had everyone laughing at his poems about his mother and his dog (dog as psychiatrist). How to follow two great acts? I read some very dark poetry - well, somebody had to be depressing! - and then we had a mini-launch of Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) with a little speech from Marge Pellegrino, a Tucson children's writer, and I read from the book (not so depressing... I hope). Then we had non-alcoholic cider and Vegemite. Meg is still trying to get rid of the jar of the stuff we gave her in Melbourne! Quite a few people tried it - "interesting" was one of the more positive comments.
I have met lots of wonderful, keen writers, and it is fascinating to hear people read out in the workshops. In my voice workshop today, everyone went along with my visualisation exercise and wrote a voice piece - the brave ones who read out were amazing. So different. For me, that means an exercise worked - when so many different voices emerged.
Tomorrow is the last day, and another agent is going to talk about query letters and first chapters - I will be taking lots more notes.

Live from Tucson

Arrived here after 23 hours enroute - including 4 at LA airport where I fell asleep in my chair and then nearly fell off it when a really loud PA announcement woke me up. What happened to the days when airlines flew direct from Melbourne? I think I am getting spoiled because my flight had the old movies on the screens up the front instead of in the seat backs and I was very upset about that! I love being able to press buttons and watch a choice of 20 movies on a little screen right in front of me.
Instead (seeing as how I had seen most of the movies on offer in the distance) I read a Jack Reacher novel - "Tripwire" by Lee Child, and had finished it before I boarded the last leg to Tucson. No wonder my eyes are hanging out of my head. And I spent most of the Tucson trip asleep (probably snoring). Woke up in time for the approach, and was just wondering if the very spread-out area of buildings in neat patterns below me was an army base or something when the man behind me said, "Wow, that is a huge prison, isn't it?" Guess that answered my question about the fences.
I always forget how Tucson is in a desert. And then I see the brown land stretching far and wide, and I remember. It reminds me of the Australian outback.
My volunteer conference driver, Kate, picked me up at the airport and dropped me at the hotel, so after a shower that woke me up a bit, I checked emails and found a dinner invitation from the Gila Gang. They are a group of children's writers whom I met when I was here last time. So after some fast ironing of clothes and a wait for a cab, I arrived at the restaurant, and no one was there. Small moment of panic - the email had been dated 24th, but I'd figured it was a day ahead because of Australian time on receiving log - had I miscalculated? No, they were out the back and I did find them. It was great to meet them all again and talk a bit about books and writing. The restaurant was Guatemalan, food was lovely, and I had this yummy drink made from rice milk with cinnamon and stuff in it.
This morning Meg called in with all my conference bizzo - schedules and location maps etc - and the last manuscript for me to read and comment on. It is two picture books that the authors have already created as mock-ups, and they look good - hard covers and all.
Meg also brought me some books, including her new collection of poetry - "Love Hunter" by Meg Files. More excellent reading to look forward to.
I'm reading Sherman Alexie's new novel "Flight" at the moment, which I bought at LA airport (why wait to start buying books?). It is very weird but I am enjoying it - and waiting to see where it will lead me next.
Now I am off for a walk around Tucson's historic area - sunscreen and sunglasses at the ready.

First Chapters at Conferences

I am about to fly off in a few days to a writers' conference in Tucson, AZ, where as well as speaking and running a writing workshop, I'll be having one-to-one sessions with a number of writers about their manuscripts. So I have spent the past three days reading, commenting and writing a report for each person (15 minutes talk time passes too quickly).
I know now why agents and editors hate it when people send in odd chapters of their novels, e.g. Chapter 1, then Chapter 5 and Chapter 23. I imagine writers think, 'These are the best chapters' or 'These chapters best convey what the novel is about'.
Well no, I can attest now that they don't. They create a lot of confusion and wrong assumptions. Especially when you send Chapter 1 and Chapter 4, and 4 seems to come right after 1, so what on earth could be in 2 and 3? (The assumption is - nothing worth reading that will add to the action.) And if the writing is good, which in the manuscripts I had was often the case, then reading bits instead of a decent slab is very frustrating. We all want to know what happens next - not ten chapters later. The story never gets a chance to work up a decent head of steam.
So here I am to tell you - send Chapters 1, 2 and 3. Please.
The great thing about this conference (Pima Writers' Workshop at Pima College) is that its focus is on writing. Yes, there is stuff on agents and publishing, but many of the sessions focus either on talking about craft or on actual writing. My workshop will be on Character and Voice in Children's and YA Fiction, and I have some good exercises lined up. I'm also hoping to attend some of the other sessions, such as the one on Deeper Imagery in Poetry.
What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the chance to spend four whole days talking to writers about writing and books, sharing ideas and experiences, and learning from others. That's what I love about writing - there is always something new to learn, and always I find new ideas bursting out of my brain as I spark off other writers' workshops, comments and suggestions.
So shortly this blog will go 'global' again. And I'll be in sunny Arizona, with my swimsuit instead of my warm coat.

What is Voice?

The eternal question. Does it matter? Yes, it apparently does, especially when you hear editors and agents at conferences say, "A story with a great voice and a weak plot can be fixed; a story with a great plot and a voice that isn't working can't be fixed."
So, are they right?
Yes and no. Some stories emerge from voice. John Marsden says that he began the War series (which starts with Tomorrow When the War Began) when he heard Ellie's voice in his head - Ellie being the narrator. It's often the way it works for me. I started a story about a girl called Tracey Binns and her voice just took over - she was very demanding! But I have written other stories where the voice is not nearly so strong. With chapter books, it's not such an issue. In fact, I have a chapter book where the voice is probably stopping it being published, because the kid is pretty nerdy and weird.
In class, I try to get the students to do a lot of work on their characters, not because I think they need to know every single thing about their character's life (although it helps) but because in writing and imagining their main character, they can often "fall into" the voice. We do free writing, imagining our characters telling stories that begin, "Let me tell you how it happened ..." or in YA, perhaps, "This is how it went down ..." One good exercise I recommend is to interview your character via free writing, sit them down at a table, ask them questions and then let them answer. All kinds of strange and wonderful things can come out of this, including things that you didn't know were part of your character's life.
Back to the question - can you fix a weak/uninvolving voice? Yes, I think so, but it requires several things to happen:
1. That you put aside the manuscript and forget entirely about it.
2. That you focus on your character and spend a lot of time writing about them and writing things in their voice - role playing, imagining their world, and then working your way into seeing the world through their eyes. How your character sees/understands/filters/judges the world around them is, to me, an intrinsic part of voice.
3. That you create a whole, real life for your character - their family, friends, school/work, lovers, enemies etc.
4. And then you focus on their dreams, goals, ambitions and fears. Get your character to write secret thoughts about these things. Note I said "get your character to write" - by now, if you have really delved into who your character is, it really will be her or him writing about what they fear most, or what they want most in their lives.
If you haven't captured voice after doing all of those things, you need to ask yourself why not. And weird though it may seem, it might just be because you are too afraid to let your character be "real" to you.
Enough psychoanalysis-type stuff for one night.
I'm off to read some Peter Temple.

Book Hog

This is what can happen to a gum tree when it's been really dry (like our 8 year drought) and a few insects, probably termites and/or their relatives, move in. One day, for seemingly no good reason, the tree goes down. It's weird to see. We have plenty of gums that have succumbed to high winds, especially on the tops of ridges, but this one was down by the dry creek bed. What fascinates me is the way the tree splits into wedges rather than one great splintered mess.
Why am I a book hog? Because I bought the new Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin - and I have been reading it non-stop for three days. I tried to slow down. I tried to make it last. But I just had to read, read, read, until it was all over.
Aberdeen is still raining, only not as bad, and it's still full of people living in poverty that turns them into criminals, who are then caught by McRae. If you want a crime novel that has the most bizarre, yet entertaining, police bosses on record, try MacBride. Between Steele, who looks like something dragged through a hedge most days, and Insch, who eats lollies non-stop and is 13 stone overweight and about to die of apoplexy, McRae couldn't have a better pair of fictional bosses. A great example of major characters (technically secondary, I suppose, but they both burst the boundaries) who add a million percent to the whole novel. And the plot is multi-layered, with several crimes going on at once. So rather than one serial murderer or rapist or whatever, MacBride deftly handles half a dozen urgent crimes with corresponding investigations. Excellent.
Now I'm just sorry I pigged out, and it's over.
And as for my Super 14 team, the Crusaders, losing their semi-final ... the less said, the better. Sigh.

SCBWI Melbourne meeting

Today I went along to a get-together of our Victorian SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) - it's always great to talk to other writers and illustrators and catch up on news. At today's meeting, Virginia Lowe talked about her academic text which was based on the records she kept of her two children's book reading habits over a period of about 20 years! I can't imagine being that diligent, but some of her anecdotes about how her kids related to and understood the books they were reading were very interesting.
We also listened to a member who has spent ten years in LA, and she talked about organising events for writers in a city of 10 million people. I know myself from attending a couple of SCBWI conferences in LA how 900 writers and illustrators in one room can be overwhelming. A bit like my trip to Borders today, where I stood and looked at all those dozens of shelves of books and thought, How on earth are my books meant to even get noticed, let alone sold? Then I found The Littlest Pirate and The Littlest Pirate and the Hammerheads on their pirate display and felt much better. However, Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) was definitely wagging bookshop duty there today!
Third speaker was a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) judge. As the shortlisted titles for their awards have been recently announced, it was fascinating to hear a warts-and-all description of how the books are read, dissected and whittled down to the Notables, and finally the shortlist. I think many people there were surprised at how lengthy the process is, and how, as in any judging panel of eight people, there is rarely a consensus on what should be a "finalist". Their points system seemed both fair and unfair but, as the judge pointed out, it has to take in a dozen different criteria as well as trying to avoid subjective or emotive decisions.
My predictions for winners? Well, I'm subjective too, but I'll stick my neck out:
Picture Books (Early Childhood) - Doodledum Dancing - Meredith Costain, ill. Pamela Allen (because it's great poetry for little kids)
Picture Books (Older Readers) - The Arrival - Shaun Tan
Younger Readers Award - Bird and Sugar Boy - Sofie Laguna
Older Readers Award - The Red Shoe - Ursula Dubosarsky
Information Book - Leaf Litter - Rachel Tonkin
Now I haven't actually read all of the shortlisted books, so I may change my mind later on, but you get the best bookie's odds when you predict early, don't you?