The Inkwell Group

Debut Dagger 2012 Competition

If you write crime or thrillers, the Debut Dagger is a competition that could launch your career. Run by The Crime Writers Association (www.thecwa.co.uk) the Debut Dagger is for new authors and as we head closer to the opening of the competition, the CWA send out fabulous bulletin newsletters that are useful to all authors, not only those considering entering. In Bulletin No. 5 they say:

“One of the questions that comes up every year in the Debut Dagger is “Do you accept novels for Young Adults?” And the answer is – yes. In fact some years ago a short-listed entrant who submitted a young adult novel ended up with a publishing contract. And Alan Bradley’s entry, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (the 2007 winner), although not specifically targeted at the young adult market, had an eleven year old girl as the heroine of his story.

So in case you do plan to enter a young adult novel, this bulletin contains advice from a best selling author who specialises in that field. Sophie Mckenzie’s first novel Girl, Missing pulled in rave reviews and she subsequently went on to produce three very successful series aimed at the young adult market: Blood Ties, The Medusa Project, and the Luke and Eve books. This year saw the publication of the sequel to that first novel – Sister, Missing

Here she is on how to write a successful Young Adult Novel:

I write the kind of books I like to read… these tend to be psychological thrillers with strong relationships at their heart. My main characters are usually teenagers simply because, for reasons I’m not entirely clear about, I enjoy writing from a teenage point of view. Many of the principles of successful writing apply whoever ends up reading the book – but here are my top tips for making a YA thriller work as well as possible.

A strong story

This is the most important element of all. If your story isn’t strong enough, then nothing else really matters. All the fine writing and nuanced characterization in the world won’t save a fundamentally boring tale – or even an average one – from reader indifference.

What makes a story strong? This, of course, is partly in the eye of your teenage reader and always hard to define, but essentially I think it comes down to a compelling central character with a huge need or goal and plenty of significant obstacles getting in the way of that need or goal being realized. In my first published book, Girl, Missing, 14-year-old Lauren knows she is adopted but nothing about her life before that. Her adoptive parents aren’t talking, but one day Lauren sees a picture of a girl who went missing twelve years ago on a website and starts to suspect that the girl is her. Desperate to find her birth family and to discover whether she was stolen away from them as a toddler, Lauren goes in search of the truth. This journey leads her into many life-threatening dangers and also forces her to make choices that affect the lives around her. She has a clear goal – to find out the truth about her past – and a clear need – to work out who she is by understanding where she comes from.

Identity is a strong theme in many YA books. This makes sense. Adolescence is a time when you realize you’re no longer a child, but are struggling (consciously and/or unconsciously) to work out who you are as an adult. Many of my YA books touch on this subject. For example, in Blood Ties and Blood Ransom, Rachel and Theo have to come to terms with discovering they not only were cloned from other people, but that RAGE (the Righteous Army against Genetic Engineering) thinks they shouldn’t exist at all and is plotting to eliminate them.

Lots at stake relevant to teenage protagonist.

If you find it hard to remember what it was like to be a teenager then I’d suggest that you may struggle to write a YA story that teens can relate to. While some concerns are universal, teenagers exist in a world of adult pressures, confusing hormonal changes and challenging social scenarios. In some ways they are relatively powerless: usually without much money and expected to toe the parental line on stuff like homework, skirt lengths and curfews. In other ways, they are starting to realize just how powerful they are, as individuals with the potential to develop values and beliefs that may be very different than those of the adults around them. Emerging friendships and relationships have to be negotiated and moral dilemmas may have to be faced.

My Medusa Project series features a group of teenagers with psychic abilities. While the stories themselves are solid thrillers in which the teens solve crimes using their powers, the books also focus on the often problematic friendships between members of the group, the budding romances and the lack of control some of the teens have over their emerging abilities (which hopefully reflects the lack of control adolescents often feel they have over their bodies).

Get on with it.

Forget any lengthy scene setting to open your novel. It’s crucial to get into the story fast. The younger your reader, the less time they will give a book. Adults sometimes suggest that my stories move too fast. This rarely occurs to my YA readers. Generally they want to be able to identify straight away with the main character, they don’t like long descriptions of anything and they resent detours, back stories and other forms of padding. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to these ‘rules’, but they are worth bearing in mind.

Once you have written your story, you have to be open to revising it. This is always true, of course, but particularly so when it comes to writing a book for the demanding teenage reader. Cut what doesn’t serve the story. Don’t be indulgent.

Exciting plots

As I write, I try to make sure that everything that happens in my stories is unexpected, but credible. Teenagers, like the rest of us, want to be kept on the edge of their seats unsure what’s going to happen next. However, they are not stupid. If what happens next is unconvincing in the context of the story so far, they will be as annoyed as you or I.

Getting grown ups out of way

For me, getting the adults out of the picture is crucial. Teenage protagonists need to be able to overcome their problems and save the day independently. Of course, any book works best if the main character is at the centre of the action, moving the story along, but YA readers, who may feel relatively powerless in real life, rarely want to read about passive characters who let adults boss them about.

This is a huge challenge for the YA author writing stories set in the contemporary world which is crammed full of authority figures. From parents and teachers, to police and social workers, there are many people to whom twenty-first century teenagers can turn in their hour of need – and the abundance of available technology makes it easy to stay connected.

In Sister, Missing, the sequel to Girl, Missing, Lauren now has most of the answers she was looking for concerning her mysterious past. However, she is forced into another series of dangerous situations when her little sister goes missing under circumstances very similar to those in which Lauren was lost years before. Through the story Lauren turns to a variety of adults who let her down – but also ignores useful advice from wiser heads. Read successful YA writers.

If you want to write YA thrillers, it makes sense to read some. There are plenty of great books out there. As a starting point, I’d recommend the very popular The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.

And finally… don’t be daunted by what others have achieved. Learn from them. Who’s to say you can’t be successful too?

Sophie McKenzie’s website is www.sophiemckenziebooks.com

Update:

In Bulletin 1 you may remember I mentioned that Peggy Blair’s short-listed Debut novel, The Beggar’s Opera was to be published in February (and if you don’t remember, see below for details on how to find previous bulletins). A newish phenomenon amongst publishers is the video trailer. If you’d like to see the one for Peggy’s book, you can do so by popping over to her blog at peggyblair.wordpress.com

Debut Dagger 2012 Competition: 22nd October 2011 – 21st January 2012