Don’t Leave Your Readers Guessing About How it Ended

I just finished a book, and I loved the concept but the ending left me hanging as to what really happened to the MC. And this isn’t one of those “they walked off into the sunset” endings, let me tell you. This is an ending like, “MC makes a choice and you can’t tell if they went to sleep or died or gave up or what happened and so you’re confused for the rest of your life and no longer enjoyed the book because of it”.

That kind of ending.

So let me make one thing clear here:

It’s really frustrating for me as a reader when I can’t tell how a story ended after reading it and puzzling it over for the last four days. Like, really frustrating. Because I like closure — like the rest of the world.

Open-ended endings are fine: where there’s a moment of walking off into the sunset and all that jazz.

But this is not okay when I can’t figure out if the MC is dead, asleep, or just gave up entirely making the entire book near-pointless to read in the first place.

So please, make sure your readers understand what’s happening in your books through the final pages. Please.

Tweetables:

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Don’t leave your readers hanging after the end-all-be-all ending of your manuscript. Please. … via @hannahhuntwrite

Birthdays as Bad Omens

There’s something bugging me about YA lit, and in light of my own celebration yesterday, I’m going to complain about birthdays in YA literature. Because, let’s be real, no one really does anything huge for their birthday unless you’re turning sixteen, and even then you’re lucky to get a fabulous party.

I mean, I spent all day yesterday getting fat on good food and basically playing video games with friends. That’s all I did on my birthday.

But it seems like you ask any fictional character what they did on their birthday, and you get the extremes: either it was totally awesome and the party of the year and everything went perfectly and they had their first kiss with the person they’re going to be partnered with for the rest of their life–or it sucks.

And the apocalypse happens. Or there are zombies attacking the joint, or their mother dies, or they find out their parents have lied about what species they belong to for the last decade and a half. (I don’t know about you guys, but if my parents told me I wasn’t human after fifteen years, I would freak the fuck out.–Sidenote: Totally pulling this on my future children. I’m such a troll.)

Anyway, you see what I mean? Birthdays are a day of extremes in YA lit, used more as a cruel or beautiful irony than treated as any normal day–which tends to be how my birthdays play out in reality. So why don’t we do that? Why is there never any small party with just family or a handful of friends where all the problems in the book melt away for a solid twenty-four hours?

Because that’d be too realistic? Not interesting enough? What? It would really lull your MC into a false sense of normality/security, and then everything would be so much more interesting when shit hits the fan later. I promise. So don’t bring the apocalypse to the birthday party. Save that for the day after, because we won’t be expecting the party to go well or normally. And then it will, and as readers, we’ll say, “Oh, guess I was wrong. Everything’s fine.” and then you can be like “NOPE GOTCHA, SUCKERS.” and pull a fast one.

It’ll work so much better and allow for a realistic birthday for your special character who’s life you’re about to destroy.

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

birthdays in #yalit are weird and #extreme. You either have a perfect party, or the apocalypse happens.

@hannahhuntwrite can’t understand why birthdays either aren’t mentioned or go horrifically/awesomely in #yalit.

Sense of Time in YA Manuscripts

I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve read a good handful of published books where I literally can’t map out a timeline for their plot. There’s no way to tell how much has passed between chapters and that’s something that really bugs me as a reader.

Has it been five days since you’ve seen the mysterious bad boy you’re not supposed to fall in love with? Or two years? Or twenty minutes? I couldn’t tell you.

And this lack of a timeline tends to leave me floating as a reader. I don’t like not being as solidly grounded in your characters’ realities as humanly possible. I don’t like unmeasured time gaps because you always have a sense of how long it’s been from an event, even if it’s not exact.

Long-lost childhood friend reappears randomly? Well, when’s the last time your MC’s seen them? Last year? Twelve years ago? I don’t know.

My one plea is that authors take the time to make sure the timelines of their story come across clearly. You may know it as the writer, but your readers have to understand it too.

Tweetables:
(Click the bird)

@hannahhuntwrite talks about the importance of #timelines in #yalit #writingtip

When there’s Not Enough Imagination in YA

Have you ever picked up a book and wondered what the author was thinking when it came to naming things or developing the world? Does everything feel surface-level imaginary? Like they couldn’t think of a better name for the lake with reflective water in it than Mirror Lake? Or naming a country after a season or month because no one’s ever going to figure that out if you just add a silent ‘e’ to the end or add in a ‘y’ for ‘i’s or anything.

Never.

Does that annoy you? Because it drives me bonkers.

I mean, as an author of a fantasy especially, it’s your job to transport me to another world. Typically entirely. And if I find even the smallest shred of reality there I won’t be nearly as interested in finishing your story. You can have bakers or common occupations, sure. But don’t name your main character Bob or give him anything that resembles a cell-phone as a form of communication. Make him telepathic, or something. Try to be different than every other medieval fantasy out there. Please.

Because I’ve essentially read at least six fantasies that are loosely based on Arthurian legend in terms of their setting and they’re all starting to crowd the same imaginary world in my head, so I’d appreciate it if you’d please pick up some variety. The medieval cities are starting to have overcrowding and plague issues.

If you don’t try to be different/unique, it just makes you look lazy.

Like, seriously. I didn’t even mind Divergent when the different factions are named after personality aspects, but, like, naming a capital city after the month of January is a little bit of a stretch for me. I get it your story is about the seasons, or the elements, take your pick, but please don’t name the water city anything water-related. I’ll still understand that it’s underwater if–I don’t know–you mention that it’s underwater.

Like, naming a fire-city Inferno just doesn’t cut it anymore.

I get that your concept may revolve around these things (elements, seasons, the zodiac) but please don’t directly name stuff after them unless you have to. The Zodiac one I can kind of understand, but it still made things SUPER obvious. It just doesn’t feel as genuine or imaginative to me when every Leo acts the same way and every Libra is a hot-head. I know what to expect from them after a while.

How do you guys feel about this element of simplicity in naming things in YA?

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

Naming your fire-city Inferno just doesn’t cut it anymore. Imagination in #yalit #writing #problems… via @hannahhuntwrite

Imagination in #yalit needs some serious help. @hannahhuntwrite talks about predictability of place names…

Rushing or Lagging Behind? Let’s talk Pacing

Let’s talk pacing.

Everybody goes at their own pace. In everything. Which makes writing no different. But if there’s something I’m learning I can’t stand, it’s when the pacing of the book sacrifices the development of two key ares: character, or plot.

I use the word “or” because character and plot do not necessarily go hand in hand. When dealing with pacing, it’s easy to lose one for the sake of strengthening the other. Character development is often lost when a book moves rapidly from one point to the next in rapid succession.

Plot is lost when a character takes too long to introduce themselves. This typically results in info dumping. Which is bad.

If you’re not sure what info dumping is, it’s basically telling your reader everything they’ll ever need to know about your main character and their tragic backstory in one concentrated point of the story, and never bringing up any of the information again. Or you do bring up the information repeatedly, and then we start to get annoyed because you’re being redundant. So don’t do it.

I really have an issue when I come across a book that’s all plot driven and there’s little to no character growth. Why? Because I’ve been chastised for doing it in my own early drafts and I’ve realized that the people who pointed out the problem to me were right. So it really bugs me when other writers can get away with it.

Why?

Because there’s no personal growth. And isn’t storytelling supposed to convey growth or at least change in a character at the very minimum?

When your pacing is too fast, there’s no time for self-reflection or growth for a character. They’re simply reacting to the events around them and not considering the consequences. There isn’t time set aside for their moral views to either solidify or change based on the events they’ve lived through over the course of your book, and they come off as ignorant and whiney when we’ve been listening to them bemoan and complain about the events in their life the entire time.

Too fast of a pace also leaves your readers really confused because you’ve given them no time to process the last big event before moving onto the next. So we’re winded and so lost by the end of your novel.

On the flip side, when your pacing is too slow we get an overload of personal information from your main character, and as a reader, we quickly lose interest if nothing exciting has happened. Because your character is just another Joe Shmoe/Mary Sue when nothing happens to him/her. A pacing that is too slow will make any reader put the book down unless it’s their job to read the entire manuscript and you’re paying them double or triple what they’d pay for the book in the first place. And as far as I’m concerned, that job doesn’t exist.

So how do you strike a balance? You adjust your speed in your rewrites. You take more time for character development if you’re mostly plot-driven in the last version. Or you devote less time to character thoughts/reflections if you were too heavily focused and up the speed of your events if your pacing was too slow the first time around.

But how do you know your pacing is too fast/slow?

You find Beta Readers. End of story. People who read your manuscript over and over again and tell you when they think you’re ready for the next step. They’re crazy and weird and wonderful all wrapped into one human being. Like Tonks. You do not submit your first drafts to any agent/publisher. Ever. Just don’t do it. Fix your pacing first.

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

When a story is too fast, we get confused. When it’s too slow, we’re bored. @hannahhuntwrite talks #pacing in #yalit

Let’s talk about #pacing today. How fast or slow should your #yalit MS move? via @hannahhuntwrite

Strange Names

Something that really bugs me in YA literature is the influx of strange names or nicknames for characters. I mean, I can understand “Addie” as a nickname or shortened version of a full. I can even understand numbers “Four”, or, like something pronounceable like Fish — there was a kid at my high school who went by Fish. No one remembers his real name. Seriously.

But when you give me a name like Lodestar, I’m a little lost.

I have no idea how to pronounce Lodestar. Is it Lode-est-ar? Like Sylvester but with a long ‘o’?

Or is it Lode-star -> “load-star”?

Because the load-star version just sounds ridiculous.

So I’m really confused when I come across names I can’t sound out phonetically. Maybe it’s just me, but I consider it a problem. Maybe this is also why I tend to not read fantasy as much as my friends, because I really struggle with the names of things/places/people. Those proper nouns.

I could see it being fine if the names were even based in a different language. I have no problem with names from other cultures, but when they’re nothing more than a bunch of letters smashed together, or sounds like you’ve tried to combine two words into one name for a character, I get a little annoyed.

What are your thoughts on strange names/nicknames in YA Fiction?

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

Nicknames are fine in #yalit, even popular, but there are some I struggle with… via @hannahhuntwrite

Lodestar: lode-star? lode-est-ar? Lod-ster? Names and pronunciations in #yalit… via @hannahhuntwrite

Blog Content is Changing

I’m going to be changing up my posting routine starting this week. It’s gotten hard to continue five-day-a-week posting when I’m also jugging five classes, running three outside organizations, working, and trying to write my own fiction.

So after taking a look at the blog and the content stats, I’ve decided to cut my writing prompts and my life updates because they seem to get the least amount of traffic, and also because I no longer feel that they’re a solid addition to the blog when my goal is to help people write and follow the YA part of the industry.

So the new schedule will be (starting Monday, February 2, 2015):

Monday: Industry thoughts and rants
Wednesday: Writing Advice
Friday: Book Reviews/Blitzes/Reveals

This way the content will be more streamlined for the blog, and I have a little more time for some of the rest of the things in my life. I hope you all understand.

Typing Tuesday: Conformity in Fiction

I’m looking around the industry lately and I’ve noticed that everyone seems to be a bit of a conformist when it comes to their plot. There’s a lot of mystery vibes going around the YA genre right now, secrets being unveiled, and that’s all fine and dandy, but when everyone uses the same seven secrets with just a slight twist, I get bored. Fast.

So my question today is why do we conform? (think of the aliens from Toy Story.)

Everyone hears the saying, “Write what you want to read.” But if you’re writing work that’s so similar to everything that’s already out there, is there really a point in writing it in the first place? Granted, when basic plot lines are boiled down to the core of their simple beings, they’re all very similar and you only get a small range of variation to choose from.

But my point here is why do the sci-fi writers keep going for off-earth stories? Why is/was every earth-bound society a dystopian? Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty of following the trends too. They’re called trends for a reason. But why must we all have love interests? Why should we all have a protagonist who has either never done anything before in her life, or one who’s willing to sacrifice him/herself for those they care for?

What would the repercussions be if they didn’t do those things? What if your protagonist was an expert in your opening? What if they didn’t care that much about the people they loved? Like, they cared, but not enough to take a bullet or sacrifice themselves to competing in a deadly competition in their place?

We’re people, and we love to compartmentalize. It makes life easy to say that your hero needs to go from a total wimp to savior of the universe. But it’s more exciting when they take the option between doing nothing and saving the galaxy: and do what they want. I want to read a book about a maverick, really. I want someone who defies not only what’s expected of him/her, but what they expect of themselves. I want my character to surprise herself, and me, and everyone else around with the secrets she’ll unveil or the path she’ll choose.

I’m sick of seeing the same plots played over and over again. I’m sick of writing them over and over again. I want a character that’s a loose canon because I’m sitting here reading about characters who follow a fairly standard plot line these days, and they’re not providing a good enough escape while I’m sitting at school being asked to conform to every little standard.

Having a character that defies that need to conform? To remain part of the group? That’s empowering. Why?

Because it shows readers that there are so many more possibilities out there than the ones we see at first glance. That people can take control of their lives, that we’ll have to live with the consequences of our actions, and that maybe, if we’re lucky enough to get through all the backlash of refusing to conform, we can create something incredible for ourselves.

So come on, my fellow writers, be Buzz Lightyear–better yet, be Woody–and stop being the aliens waiting for the clawwww. Write out a character who does whatever they want to do. Who surprises even themselves. Because that’s who I want to see right now.

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

Follow the #transcendentalists and give me a character who’s not a #conformist in #yalit via @hannahhuntwrite

Why #writers and #readers love #conformity in #yalit and why it should stop via @hannahhuntwrite

Typing Tuesday: Underdeveloped Characters

As a writer you hear all the time that you need to know the motivation and internal conflicts for every character in your book. (At least, this is what I’ve heard from everyone else, and it’s fantastic advice.) To me, this means that these motivations and inner conflicts should also be present while the character is featured in the story, no matter how minor their role is.

But as I’ve been reading a lot of YA fiction, it doesn’t seem to be happening. There are side characters that I like more than the main characters but at the same time they feel flat because I’m never entirely sure why they’re in the role they’re in.

Like, I was reading Beth Revis’s The Body Electric last week, and while I love the cast, there are two characters: Xavier and Julie, who are never really spoken for in terms of why they’re in the roles they’re in. And I loved both of them, but their characters fell flat for me because I was never given their individual stories of why they hung around Jack, and it left me feeling a little hollow after reading.

Maybe it’s just something I pick up on. But to me, everyone has a story. Your narrator just has the most interesting of all of them. So you should still give glimpses into the lives of everyone else and how their stories meld with your narrator’s. You can’t just have people there to help and then not give them a reason for being there. Joining the resistance isn’t strong enough.

Instead I want a reason like: they joined the resistance because the people currently in power killed their parents in front of them (but obviously less-cliche).

I’ve been sitting at home going through each of my characters and giving them all equal attention to unearth motivation, internal conflict, and whatever backstory they may want to give me, and honestly, I’ve discovered so much more about my world and their lives and how they operate in it than I ever could if I let the “least important” character sit on the sidelines ignored.

I’m not saying writing a whole info-dump of a backstory in for them. But knowing those motivations as a writer, and those backstories, will breathe more life into the characters than you thought possible. Even if their histories aren’t outrightly stated and only you know them. You’ll understand them so much better while writing and so will your readers.

Seeing that all these people in my head have another life outside of the storyline but one that still contributes to it reminds me of just how interconnected the world can be, and I don’t think we should gloss over that for our readers. Because everything is linked, and you won’t get far until you realize that in life. So why not give our readers a heads up by revealing just how the people in the novels and stories we tell ended up there.

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

Everyone has a story. Your MC just has the most interesting one of all. @hannahhuntwrite on underdeveloped #characters.

Everyone has a story: Why you should know the background of every #character you’re #writing and their #connections.

Typing Tuesday: Connecting to Readers

So I’m going to sit here and beat a dead horse so to speak, but one thing that really bugs me is when it’s obvious that an author has no connection to their readers. Or at least a very limited connection but one that’s not strong enough to be authentic to the present teenage/young adult experience. (There is obviously an exception for Historical Fiction.)

I’ve talked about older authors trying to connect to a younger generation of readers before. Some of them can swing it, and some of them can’t. It’s why the age of bestselling authors who tend to wind up with movie deals in the YA market is gradually sinking lower and lower, why Veronica Roth is so successful, because she’s younger and can connect to the next generation.

I’ve just finished a book that attempts to connect, but poses most of the teenagers involved as a strange mix of crazy-intelligent, “nerd-squad” members who have ridiculously deprived sex lives and basically focus on (can I swear like this on the internet?)-ing each other while contemplating quantum physics. As one of those people who contemplates quantum physics and the impossibilities of the universe, I can tell you that’s not a feasible combination for the majority of us.

And I don’t know about you, but my high school days were not spent that way. I was more concerned with surviving and getting the hell out. I wanted nothing to do with the other people in my class. Come graduation day, I bolted. And I consider myself to be one of those crazy-intelligent people if my GPA has anything to say for it.

It also dredges up the whole glorification of sex in YA issue that I’ve written on before too. Like, is this really the example of the world we want to set for the next generation as the Millennials graduate into the real world and leave things behind to Generation X?

If you think this is how the world works (brainiacs with pent-up urges) in all aspects and write a whole book on it, especially centering around an intellectual crowd in terms of your characters, then I pity you because it only goes to show how disconnected you are from the way high school and college seems to operate these days.

AND I REALLY WISH SOMEONE WOULD HAVE PROOFREAD THIS BOOK BETTER. I can’t stress that enough. You’ll read all about it later.

I just, there was very little attention in my opinion given to the average reader. Instead this book takes an intellectual twist on primal functions and the horrors of the world revolving around those functions. Not teenagers. Not people who are just trying to figure life out. Just the sex thing, including rape, prostitution, and murder’s thrown in there too. And maybe I’m missing something. But I didn’t connect to this book the way I wanted to.

The concept was original, intriguing. But there were two mismatched aspects that shut me down as a reader, and it’s a shame.

What tips you off as a reader that their writer isn’t connecting to their audience?

Tweetables:

(Click the birds)

Sex and quantum physics don’t go together in #YAlit. @hannahhuntwrite explains why on #TypingTuesday

Rehashing the #generation #gap between #writers and #readers in #YAlit on #TypingTuesday with @hannahhuntwrite