Month: May 2016

What Makes a Book Middle Grade?

In less than 3 months (August 9, to be exact), my debut novel, Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom (currently the number 3,603,655th best-selling book on Amazon.com!) will be published. It will be published as a Middle Grade novel, or MG as they say in the industry.

Next year, my follow up book, Doors, will be released. Also as an MG title.

So that makes me an MG author. Wooo!!!

Who are the MG readers? Well, supposedly, they are children ages 8-12 or grades 3-6 who are beyond simple chapter books but aren’t yet ready to read about how the world has come to an end because the sparkly vampire and the innocent teenage girl can’t find love during the zombie apocalypse.

Does that mean that if you’re not between the ages of 8-12 you can’t read an MG novel? No, of course not. Anyone can read them. The first few Harry Potter books are considered MG titles. But then he grows up and likes girls and the books turn into 900-page YA novels.

Over time, I have unearthed what I thought were some of the unwritten rules on what makes an MG novel.

  1. The main characters are generally between 10-12 years old.
  2. There is no love story. No girlfriends or boyfriends. Basically, no puberty.
  3. No swearing. That should be obvious.
  4. If there is any sort of violence it is not graphic or gratuitous in any way.
  5. Good guys should win, or at least not lose (bad guys can survive/get away to help set-up sequels).

There are other rules for the basic sub-genres, but these have long guided my steps into the MG world. But now I have a dilemma.

I have a book. It is a good book. It was my first novel and it got me my Awesome Agent. Awesome Agent loved it and sent it around and got positive feedback. But nobody bought it. We couldn’t exactly figure out why until one publisher clued us in, saying in essence:

“We don’t know if this is Middle Grade or YA and we’re not sure how we’d market it.”

I took a look back at my list of five rules, and yeah, the book does break two of them. Specifically, the main characters were more like 14 years old and there is a minor love interest, though nothing that is ever truly explored.

So OK, maybe the book is meant to be YA. Except, well, no. Here are, near as I can tell, some rules for YA novels.

  1. Characters should be in High School.
  2. There should be unrequited love stirring the heart strings and quite possibly results in inappropriate behavior.
  3. Bad things can happen to everyone, including having important characters die.
  4. You can swear a little bit. The minor stuff. Not the biggies.
  5. The book should be set in a dystopian future where animals have evolved to feed on human flesh.

Aside from the evolving animals (which I think is more of a guideline than a rule), my book sort of fits. Except I don’t really swear. And my book doesn’t have a teenage girl pining over either a vampire, werewolf, or zombie. So it’s not really, YA.

It’s in between.

Now realize that the entire MG category was created to give publishers somewhere to stash the books that landed in between Children’s and YA. So where do you put the books that squeeze in between YA and MG?

As it so happens, there is an excellent example of exactly this sort of book. The Percy Jackson series. He starts out in High School. There is no real love interest. There is no swearing. There is no graphic or gratuitous violence. To be honest, the entire Rick Riorden cannon is made up of Middle Grade books starring High School kids. Which shouldn’t be possible.

So where do you stick him? Because wherever you stick him, that’s where my beloved first book resides. See, I tried to re-write it for Middle Grade, but when the characters get that young, the events of the story just don’t make sense. It is not believable that a 10 year-old would have the adventure my main character enjoys. So if the characters need to be in high school, does that mean I need to adjust the book to make it YA? By adding a stronger love story? More violence? More angst? If I do that, the book loses a lot of what makes it fun in the first place.

You see my dilemma. If anyone out there has any ideas, I’m all ears.

 

 

Dr. Fell Art Preview!

In addition to the sweet cover drawing seen here-

drfellcovercredit

-the amazing artist Will Terry is supplying Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom with a number of full-page, black & white illustrations, one for every other chapter. Below is a sneak peek at the illustration for Chapter 1.

drfell-1 Chapter

In all, there are 14 or 15 illustrations (I forget the exact number), each one bringing a specific moment of the story to life. I love Mr. Terry’s work, and think he has done a fantastic job capturing the chilling joy of the story.

Seeing someone else interpret my work in this way has been an absolute thrill. When I saw the first pencil sketch of the Dr. Fell cover, I nearly cried. It was perfect. It was obvious at first glance that the artist had not only taken the time to read the book, but that he got it, that he understood it, and that he was ready to play in the same world. There are background elements on the cover that you don’t even notice but that are directly taken from the story. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Last week, I was shown an early pencil sketch of a cover design for Doors and had a similar reaction. Sort of like ‘Wow, this is real!’ Again, the artist (a different artist, and one whose identity I will disclose at a later date when I know I’m allowed) captured the feel of the story and brought a pivotal moment to life. I’m equally excited to see what the artist does with the remainder of the story (although truth be told, I have not specifically been told that Doors will feature internal illustrations the way Dr. Fell does. I’m only assuming because I’ve also not been told it won’t. Does that make any sense?).

I’m not an artist, at least not in the ‘I draw things that look good’ sort of way. My drawings are generally stick figures. And space ships, I always tend to draw space ships for some reason. But people? Living things? Forget it. I can’t even make a tree look good. My blades of grass leave a lot to be desired, as well. So when I see characters I created depicted on the page in two-dimensions (haven’t yet gotten anyone to make hologram of one) I am in awe.

Book 2 Has a Title! And a Release Date!

After months of sturm and drang, our long national nightmare is over–Book 2 has a title!

Prepare yourselves for the awesomeness that is…

Doors

Exciting, yes? I was iffy on using Doors as a title, but was then reminded of the past success of Holes and the more recent success of Room and so figured I was OK.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we actually spent a long time trying to find the title. I had taken to calling it Doors as sort of a shorthand and always figured I’d come up with something different later. But later came and I didn’t have anything. Anything I tried to add to it (like how we added “and the Playground of Doom” to Dr. Fell) came off sounding forced.

  • Doors and the Really Big Headache
  • Doors and the Kids Who Open Them
  • Doors and the Reason to Live
  • Doors and the Very Bouncy Castle

Nothing worked. I asked my readers, they came back with nothing. Except for one. Who came back with, “I kinda like ‘Doors’ for a title. Do you think that would work?” Excellent Editor passed the book around the department and asked for ideas. All she ever got back were suggestions to use ‘Doors’ for the title.

So there ya go. Doors. By David Neilsen.

AND I can now tell you when you will be able to find Doors in your neighborhood bookstore (they still have those, right?).

August 1, 2017

You thought the wait for August 9, 2016 and the launch of Dr. Fell was interminably long? Put that baby on your calendar. Amusingly, Doors was originally set to be released on August 8, 2017. One year after Dr. Fell. I guess they were thinking I’d come to rule that week each year.

“We can’t release your book that week! It’s David Neilsen’s week!”

But then I got an email from Excellent Editor.

“David. For various reasons, we’d like to change your release date. Instead of August 8, we’d like to release it on August 1. Is that OK?”

My first thought was, of course, to respond with:

“Oh, man. I can’t that week. So busy. Sorry.”

But decided not to push my luck. So 8/1/17 it is.

We’ve already hired an illustrator (a different illustrator from the one who worked on Dr. Fell), and she’s already given us a preliminary sketch of a cover design. Nothing I can share yet, but I’m getting all tingly.

Aren’t you?

Drowning in Red, Green, and Purple Ink

I have received Book 2 back from Copyediting! Wooo!

This means it’s time for me to re-read my work and see just how much I did wrong.

It is a humbling experience. Even when everyone likes the book (which they tell me they do), there are still a hundred or more errors sprinkled throughout. Getting the manuscript back from Copyediting is always a nervous experience (I say having had the experience all of two times). I have a relationship with Excellent Editor. We work together on ideas, I get suggestions and comments and critical thoughts from someone who is (or at least does a great job making think they are) invested in my book.

But Copyediting is something altogether different. It is a faceless, anonymous arm of The Man. A layer of evil every book must venture through before being reborn on the other side a creation of purity and goodness. Copyediting has RULES and GUIDELINES and stuff. There is no thought of massaging a writer’s ego, no care taken to remain gentle and nurturing. It is the harsh world, and their job is to toughen our skins.

Upon receiving the file from Copyediting, I downloaded and opened it and stared at the mass of red ink. And blue ink. And purple ink. And green ink. Everything is done through the Track Changes function, and everyone’s comments and edits are included. In an attempt to be helpful. everyone’s comments are different colors. And then there are all the colors slapped on that aren’t notes, but highlights for formatting. One color for italics, another color for bold, etc. It’s actually quite pretty if I ignore the fact that much of it is based on tearing apart my baby.

The truly soul-sucking notes are the ones I get over and over on a given manuscript. For Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom (coming out August 9, 2016! Pre-order your copy today!) this note manifested with the word “toward.” I had written it as “towards” throughout the entire book. So they made a note to change it each and every time. If I had 200 edits in the entire book, easily 30 of them were that single error.

This time is the word “OK.” I have used that work as written for forty years. I’m pretty sure I used it in Dr. Fell. However, at this time Copyediting does not like OK. It wants me to spell it out. Okay. So every time a character says OK, there’s a note to change it. Every. Single. Time.

It is a learning process. I must slowly but surely learn proper grammar. Eventually it will be ingrained within me and come naturally, but until then, it will be corrected. Over and over and over and over.

It is a slow process, but in the end my brain will be washed and all will be well.