Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  Erin Murphy is the founder of Erin Murphy Literary Agency, a leading U.S. children’s book agency representing writers and writer-illustrators of picture books, novels for middle-graders and young adults, and select nonfiction. Erin began her career in editorial, eventually becoming editor-in-chief at Northland Publishing/Rising Moon Books for Young Readers. She founded her agency in 1999.Find out more about Erin at http://emliterary.com.

  Calling your shot for others

  Your hook is your opportunity to declare your story’s original spin and get people excited about it. Following is a list of folks for whom you’re writing that hook and what they’ll do with the information:

  Publishers: You use your hook to pitch your manuscript to editors during submission. But the hook doesn’t stop there. Editors are the fronts of vast operations. When editors are intrigued enough to pursue your manuscript, they use your hook — or a variation of it — to pitch your story to editorial committees, marketing staff, and sales reps. Eventually, the hook makes its way to book buyers via sales reps and marketing materials. Salability is an essential factor in an editor’s decision to buy, or acquire, a manuscript, and calling out the details that make your story different from others tells everyone what’s marketable about it.

  Agents: Deliver a strong hook in the first paragraph of your query letter, and you’ll convince agents that your story can stand out in the busy marketplace. Based on this belief, the agent may request the full manuscript and discover that you have great writing and execution to back up your different angle. The agent then agrees to represent you and the story and sets out to convince editors to do the same.

  Your hook is the first thing editors and agents see of your project. Most of the time, editors and agents accept only query letters (which feature your hook in the first paragraph) for submissions. For more on the role of your hook in positioning your project during submission, see the how-to’s of crafting query letters in Chapter 13.

  Readers: Your young readers get your hook in some form or another. You put it on your website and in your personal marketing materials when the book is published. Editors, who have a deeper knowledge of what’s selling and to whom, may use your hook as-is or recraft it for your book’s front jacket flap copy, and then reviewers pick it up and disseminate it to librarians, teachers, and consumers.

  Everyone else: You’ll be asked, “What are you working on?” and “What’s the book about?” somewhere around a million times in your career. Don’t reply with your plot summary or even with a one-liner about your premise (the very core idea of your story); reply with your hook. The hook tells people why your story is special as well as what it’s about. Then bust out your business card or promotional bookmark so your questioner can rush straight to the bookstore with your title in hand.

  Though the industry’s focus on the marketplace requires you to consider your market position before you even start writing, don’t think you must write a high-concept story to get a book contract. High-concept stories put a mass-appeal idea ahead of characters, often to such a degree that the characters seem incidental to the story. You can sell a character-driven story that explores personal growth; you just need to find a unique and compelling way to come at that story. Otherwise, your story will be labeled quiet, a term that says nothing about the quality of your writing but that screams volumes about your ability to stand out in bookstores. Writing your hook early forces you to articulate your story’s unique quality, which forces you to have a unique quality in the first place. A hook is a great way to see whether what you have is, indeed, different after all.

  Calling your shot for yourself

  As soon as you settle on your main character, conflict, and theme, writing the hook for your project is a wise idea. This approach isn’t just about establishing your market position; it’s about boosting your writing process. Formulating a concise description of your story helps you shape its elements and stay focused through months (or years) of writing.

  Think of your hook as your mission statement: “I’ll write a story about this character in this situation with this outcome and with this message or lesson.” No matter how long writing the novel takes or how many subplots strike your fancy, establishing a solid hook early on keeps your story moving forward on a solid trajectory. Otherwise, losing focus is too easy, and you may wander all over the place with the plot. Unfocused plots are a big reason for agent and editor rejections. Let your hook be your beacon in the mist.

  Post your hook above your computer and refer to it during the day-to-day drafting, during the editing and revision, during the creation of your submission materials, and even during the development of your promotional strategy and marketing materials.

  Writing a Great Hook in Four Easy Steps

  A great hook is both informative and tantalizing. It describes your story, positions it in the marketplace, and makes people eager to read the full manuscript. This section walks you through the steps of writing an effective hook. To show you this process at work, I build a hook as you read along.

  As you write your hook, keep in mind three guiding principles:

  Make sure that character and conflict get top billing. Your main character and plot are the elements that most distinguish your YA novel from other books, so every other element of your hook is subordinate to these. Above all, tell the world what’s different about these two items.

  Be specific. Details distinguish your story and define its audience, so include age, race, era, or any other standout details as necessary.

  Keep it short. The shorter your hook, the better you can focus attention on specific elements, so be selective about what you include. What do you want editors and agents to remember most about your pitch? Put that element front and center and then strip out the rest.

  Whether your story is character-driven, plot-driven, or high-concept, you can write a great hook that earns you a “send me the full manuscript” request from agents and editors.

  Step 1: Introduce your character

  The first thing to do when drafting your hook is to introduce your main character. You don’t have to state her name, but doing so personalizes her. Revealing her age defines her further and also defines your audience. After all, young readers like to read about kids their own age or a little bit older. You can replace the age with the character’s grade in school if that’s more illuminating to your storyline.

  Give your character a setup, such as her role (cheerleader, peasant, socialite, geeky sister of the Big Man on Campus) or her persona (nerdy, über-smart, stuck up, rebellious) if those are distinguishing. A story about a boy fitting in at a new school, for example, sounds more interesting when you know that this boy is the school’s first male cheerleader.

  Using Step 1, here’s the start of a sample hook:

  Privileged sophomore Brandi . . .

  Step 2: State your theme

  Though you don’t want to preach to young readers in the story, your hook should suggest what your story’s underlying message is. Do this by stating your theme, which helps the readers of your hook understand the potential audience and gives them insight into the main conflict.

  Universal themes are those issues and concerns that most teens face as part of the transition from childhood to adulthood, regardless of generation, location, or race. Examples include falling in love for the first time and accepting or rejecting faith. (See Chapter 2 for more on theme.)

  You can overtly state your theme, or you can imply it within the character setup and the description of the core conflict. Building on the example from Step 1, here’s a sample hook-in-progress:

  Privileged sophomore Brandi avoids social suicide . . .

  Most people understand that someone who’s “avoiding social suicide” is grappling with issues of friendship, social status, and peer pressure. I could’ve stated the theme more overtly by using th
e words “gives in to peer pressure” instead.

  Don’t be generic about your theme. Use words and phrases that add zip or evoke feelings, such as “dumped” or “rejected” instead of “suffers the pain of love lost.”

  High-concept books typically don’t mention a theme at all because the character’s journey isn’t their selling point, whereas character-driven stories need a solid statement of the theme.

  Step 3: Assert your core plot conflict or goal

  Show readers that you’re offering a new look at a universal teen theme or subject with your statement of the conflict. This step is where your story stands out the most, so drive home your hook. This is where quiet premises get noisy and compelling.

  Here’s the sample hook with the conflict included:

  Privileged sophomore Brandi avoids social suicide by refusing to tell on a friend — but she then must spend a month of Saturday detentions with the biggest losers in the school.

  Step 4: Add context

  In Step 4, you work in details depending on their relevance, with your goal being to add pizzazz and/or context that pushes the reader to want to know more. This step is where your facts get rounded out, suggesting the complexities and intriguing potential of your particular story. It’s also where you personalize the hook formula. Move the elements of your hook around a little. Start with the theme instead of the character or try leading with the plot. Look for words that provoke reactions in your readers. Take your hook beyond a statement of fact and turn it into something tantalizing.

  Here are the kinds of details to consider adding to your hook:

  Time: The year, the era, and current-event references can all distinguish a story. A World War II story of a boy who loses his dad during military conflict is different from a Desert Storm–era story with the same theme.

  Location: Give the place context, too. A story set in rural Montana is different from one set in New York City.

  Circumstances: Another way to provide character setup is to tip off readers about extraordinary backstories that define the character and plot, as in these examples: “Following his release from a state mental institution, Joe . . .” or “After a beat-down meant to kill him, Joe . . .”

  Category and genre: Whether you include your genre and category statements in your hook depends on what you’re using your hook for. When you’re submitting materials to an agent or publisher, you don’t need to waste precious word count by stating your category and genre right in your hook; you note those elements elsewhere in the query letter. You probably don’t need to do so on your website, either. There, you can put a cover image and the genre designation (“middle grade historical fiction,” for example) right next to the hook, so you don’t need to include those items in the actual hook.

  If you do need to state the category and genre directly in your hook, try something like this: “[Book title] is a middle grade sci-fi tale about [insert your hook here, starting with the character setup you create in Step 1].”

  Words reflective of your tone: Your hook is more than a statement of the facts; you must tantalize or tease. You can do that with your word choice. If your story is spooky, underscore that through threatening words and dashes followed by unsettling twists. The hook for a silly or lighthearted story should replace standard words and phrases with those that evoke lightheartedness. Don’t go crazy with your wording, but do hint at the mood and circumstances. What’s the spirit of your book? Classic? Dramatic? Adventurous? Playful? After you work in details and choose words that reflect your tone, you’ll have your final hook.

  Brevity is desirable. Add context to your hook only if it’s vital or particularly surprising or intriguing. Whenever possible, reduce two- or three-word phrases to a single, evocative word.

  Here’s the sample hook I built in Steps 1 through 3: “Privileged sophomore Brandi avoids social suicide by refusing to tell on a friend — but she then must spend a month of Saturday detentions with the biggest losers in the school.” That’s a solid and intriguing hook, and at 30 words, it’s concise, too. But it can get a boost with a little extra context. Here’s my hook after I reworked the language to be more provocative and to suggest that the character’s emotional journey involves social status versus sincere friendship:

  When stuck-up sophomore Brandi refuses to rat out a girl in her clique, she must survive a month of Saturday detentions with the school druggies — who happen to be the girls she fingered for the crime. (36 words)

  I added details that intensify the distastefulness of her plight (would you rather hang out with “losers” or “druggies”?) and that make the conflict sound even more exciting. Clearly these girls have good reason to make Brandi’s next four Saturdays true nightmares.

  This is where you should stop to evaluate your story’s marketability. Are you offering something really different? Does the conflict seem dramatic enough? Have you put your story on a large enough stage, with enough at risk, offering circumstances that really stand out? The time to make big changes in your story’s core premise is now, not after you’ve received rejection letters from agents and editors. Crafting your hook early helps you vet your premise before you write the story, determining whether a market exists for your project and figuring out how you can make your story stand out.

  Here are three final tips to make the hook-writing process smoother (and more fun!):

  Look to the Library of Congress. Study the Copyright in Publication (CIP) data summary on the copyright pages of your favorite young adult novels to get a feel for crafting concise statements of a story’s main elements. CIP summaries are created to tell librarians and library patrons what a book is about. They call out the features that distinguish this title from all other books of the same theme and topic. Here’s a behind-the-scenes secret: Editors or their assistants write suggested CIP copy as part of the CIP application process, and their description often gets used in almost unaltered form in the final CIP data. So again, your hook statement may have a life far beyond your initial pitch.

  Get that movie guy’s voice in your head. Don LaFontaine made the words “In a world . . .” synonymous with movie trailers before his death in 2008. Thanks to recording more than 5,000 trailers and hundreds of thousands of TV ads, promotions, and video game trailers, his voice is one of the most well-known in American pop culture. Try channeling Mr. LaFontaine when you write your hook. I used it to write the jacket flap copy for countless published novels in my days as an in-house editor. Just be sure to dial it down a few notches. You aren’t really Don LaFontaine, nor are you a used car salesman. Don’t get adjective-happy, which makes you wordy and gives the hook a feeling of melodrama, which doesn’t reflect well on your writing. Stick with statements and abrupt cut-offs to tease.

  Try to trim your hook down to between 20 and 25 words. It’s hard, but the exercise is worth the effort. Even if you can’t whittle it down that low in the end, the hook you do end up with will be focused, and each word will have earned its place.

  Exercise: Write your hook

  Using the four steps from the previous sections, develop your hook statement.

  Step 1: Introduce your character: ______________________________

  Step 2: State your theme: ______________________________

  Step 3: Assert your core plot conflict or goal: _______________

  ___________________________________________________________________

  Write the results of Steps 1 through 3 in a single sentence:

  ___________________________________________________________________

  Step 4: Add context. Experiment with details and words that evoke a tone reflective of your story’s tone or purpose. Move the elements of your hook around a little if need be. Start with the theme instead of the character or perhaps lead with the plot. Here’s where you personalize the hook formula.

  ____________
_______________________________________________________

  Planning a series

  If you have visions of a series dancing in your head, here are a few things you need to know:

  The market: A young adult series can be lucrative if it takes off, but it can be a hard sell to publishers because of the financial risk of investing in multiple books. They want distinct hooks and characters for series, and having a recognizable brand-name author at the helm is a big plus. You may not be able to flash the brand-name author card, but you can still get a series deal if your hook and characters are distinct and strong.

  The hook: Be able to articulate what makes your series and the individual stories within it different and marketable. Find out as much as you can about competitive series to determine whether yours has a fresh enough spin. Successful series are as much about positioning as they are about well-crafted, entertaining stories. The more succinctly you can state your hook, the better.

  The overview: You have several important decisions to make as you strategize the big picture for your series:

  The nature of your storyline: You may use the same characters and a similar plot structure throughout your series for consistency, but beyond that you must decide whether the series is sequential, with each book taking up where the other left off, or continuous (or episodic), with events happening as if they’re part of an unending high school experience (and possibly without referring to other episodes in the series). If you choose episodic, figure out how to keep the characters interesting across the series while moving them through a complete adventure in each book. If you choose sequential, figure out how your characters age and develop over the course of the series. Each character should have a character arc for the series as a whole, with each book offering distinct forward movement in that development. (Be careful not to age your characters out of your audience age range.)