60 Seconds with Sarah

This is a quick q and a I did for Bord Gais last night - as you can see, I didn't answer all the questions as I couldn't think of a super power I'd like at midnight! Wonder Woman's energy springs to mind this morning as I yawn. I'll wake up soon ;).I'm off to West Cork on Friday to write and have a lovely 2 week holiday, so I won't be posting much for the next 3 weeks - have a brilliant July and talk soon. Yours in writing, Sarah XXX

60 Seconds with……….Sarah Webb

1. What was the last book you read? The Help by Kathryn Stockett, about the world of black maids and the families that hire them. Set in Mississippi in the 1960s, it has some fantastic characters and knock out scenes. I loved it and would highly recommend it.

2. What kinds of books do you most enjoy reading? I read all kinds of books, including books for children and teenagers, which often have brilliant characters and cracking plots. For example I'm off on holidays at the end of this week and I've packed the following: So Much to Tell by Valerie Grove, the biography of Kaye Webb, ex-editor of Puffin Books she was amazing and had such an impact on children's publishing; The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller - as I've heard great things about it; Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light - he writes beautifully; The Love Verb by Jane Green - she's one of the best popular fiction writers around when she's on form; Rules for a Perfect Life by Niamh Greene - great Irish popular fiction; Moneyball by Michael Lewis, a book about baseball and the legendary Oakland A's - I love good sports books!; Personally I Blame My Fairy Godmother by Claudia Carroll and No Ordinary Love by Anita Notaro - more great Irish popular fiction; The Radleys by Matt Haig - zingy crossover vampire book with a difference; and finally Stories from the Queen of Teen Award - stories from last year's shortlisted authors, as I've been shortlisted this year. Oh and also the proofs of John Boyne and David Almonds' new children's novels. Phew! Will I get through them all - just watch me!

3. What was your favourite book as a child? As a child and now my favourite book is Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. It's funny, searingly honest and it makes me smile. I read it every year. I also love Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. I still read a lot of children's books as they are so darned good!

4. What author past or present most inspires you? Judy Blume first off for changing teen girl's fiction forever. Periods, bras, divorce, peer pressure, bullying - it's all in there - she was the Jackie Wilson of her day and is still writing for children now, well into her seventies. And also Marian Keyes for being so honest in her books and also so honest in speaking about her personal life. Her recent blog entries on her 'black dog' depression have been so moving and I know have made a difference to other people who have exprienced similar feelings, myself included.

5. How did you get into writing? Was writing something you always wanted to do? I used to fill notebooks full of stories from about age 10, and a kept daily diary from 13. I think a lot of writers try to make sense of the world by writing about it from a pretty early age. Plus I've always been a huge reader. I used to read while walking home from school and bumped into many lamp posts and tripped over many dog leads in my day! I think most big readers try writing at some stage. I wrote my first book, a children's cookery book, as a single mum working in Waterstone's Bookshop on Dawson Street. To be honest, I needed the money. I'd been writing articles and reviews for various papers and magazines and I guess I saw a book as the next logical step. It was called Kids Can Cook. My first adult novel, Three Times a Lady, was published in 2000. That was directly inspired by Maeve Binchy, Patricia Scanlan, Sheila O'Flanagan, Cathy Kelly, and Marian Keyes - all trail blazers in their own way.

6. If you could have written any book throughout history which would you pick? Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. It's inspired. And The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, another brilliant book. I'm sure I'm supposed to say something high brow like Ulysses, but that's just not me. For me, in novels, the character is the thing. To fall in love with a book, I have to love the characters.

7. What do you do to unwind? Read! Walk the pier in Dun Laoghaire. Chat to friends. Watch Grey's Anatomy (the only telly programme I watch) or a DVD.

8. If you had to choose a favourite holiday memory, what would it be?

9. Do you have a guilty pleasure? If so, what is it?

Sport movies or films with any kind of sport in them - it's true. I don't watch sport on the television, ever, but I love films like Field of Dreams, Jerry Maguire, and Bend it Like Beckham. 10. What super power would you most like to have?

11. If you could have three wishes come true, what would you wish for?

12. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? A ballerina. I never dared dream of being a writer. I think I wanted it too much to even dream about it for fear of jinxing things.

13. What famous person dead/alive would you most like to meet and why? Maurice Sendak, because he has produced some truly amazing books and I have a feeling he's just a big kid at heart!

14. What three words would describe you best?

15. Do you have a facebook or twitter account? Yes, I like Facebook very much. It's a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, and it also makes it nice and easy for readers to pop in and just say 'hi'. I love connecting with readers. I don't Twitter. I waste enough time on Facebook.

16. Who would you most like to write your biography? Martina Devlin, novelist and columnist. Although she probably knows me a little too well for my liking!

17. What three items could you not live without? Books, my family, my laptop. Oops, sorry, that should of course read - my family, books, my laptop.

A Note on Word Count

Word counts – I’ll get straight into it, starting with books for grown ups. Popular fiction in particular. My first book, Three Times a Lady was roughly 100,000 words. Here’s how I worked out the word count - I literally counted the words in a Cathy Kelly book, a Sheila O’Flanagan book and a Marian Keyes book and figured that 90 to 120k was about right! This was in 2000. (When I say counted – I counted the number of words on one page and multiplied it by the number of total pages – I’m not a complete lunatic! But you knew that, right? Someone in a writing class I once taught thought I was suggesting they count every word – honestly!)

Some of my other books have been shorter – 85k, 86k, some longer. 126,000 is the longest – When the Boys Were Away. That year publishers were looking for longer books and my story luckily just naturally longer.

I have a feeling the next adult book will be shorter. It’s for a slightly younger age group – older teens, 20s, early 30s – and so far the story just seems to be zipping along and not getting sidetracked by sub plots, which can stretch a book out. So I’d say 80 to 90k.

I’ve asked a few of my friends who write popular fiction and they are mainly in the 90k to 110k category.

Children’s books are a little more complicated. I am constantly asked how many words should a children’s book actually be?

Now, this is a rather vague question. So I ask ‘What kind of children’s book?’ And they say ‘Oh, you know, a novel. Anyone would love it. I’d say age 6 to 80.’ My heart always sinks at this, as it means the writer hasn’t grasped one of the fundamentals of writing for children – and this is that you must know your audience.

Children of 6 do not read the same books as teenagers of 14. And yes, of course there are rare ‘crossover’ books like Harry Potter or The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’, but in general different age groups have different tastes. And their stories need different word counts.

Knowing you audience and their needs is an interesting one – I’ll make a note to come back to it at a later stage. But for now – word count.

These are very much just guidelines, oh writerly ones!

Picture books are short generally, people, SHORT. Read some picture books, count the words and get a feel for it. Usually less than 400 or 500 words.

Early readers are also SHORT. My Emma the Penguin book in the O’Brien Panda series is 800 words long, and, I hope, not a word out of place. Most publishers will tell you what word count they need for their early reading series – contact then and ask. Just ring O’Brien Press – 01 – 492333 (Dublin) and ask them. They are very helpful. I’m not sure what they are taking on at the moment, but again, that’s useful to know too – again, just ask them. Friendly folk, the O’Brien gang.

Novels for age 8/9/10 - 30,000/35,000 is the norm. Of course some books are longer than that (Yes, yes, you don’t need to mention Harry Potter), but if they are going to be must longer they need to be pretty darned good.

Novels for age 10+ – my Ask Amy Green books are usually around 50,000 words which is quite long for this age group I am told. Judi Curtin’s are about 30,000, Cathy Cassidy’s about 30 to 40,000. But Amy just has a lot to say I guess!

Older teens – less than 60/70,000 would be the norm. But fantasy books do tend to be longer.

The best thing to do is always – ALWAYS – to read a hell of a lot of books in the age group and the genre you intend to write for. Get a really good feel for it and then with that in mind, write your own book. Won’t you get influenced by other people’s work? It’s a risk worth taking. If you are influenced by excellent children’s books – and note I said influenced, by which I mean inspired, I am not suggesting you write ‘like’ anyone else but yourself – surely this is a good thing as long as you stay true to your own voice and your characters and plot are wholly original.

Below I’ve posted a section from the blog of American literary agent, Mary Kole who has some darned good advice and comments on word count on www.kidlit.com – check it out.

She points out that these are just estimates gathered from her (wide) experience. And they relate to the American market in particular, but are also useful for the UK/Irish market: Word counts -

• Board Book — 100 words max • Early Picturebook — 500 words max • Picturebook — 1,000 words max (Seriously. Max.) • Nonfiction Picturebook — 2,000 words max • Early Reader — This varies widely, depending on grade level. I’d say 3,500 words is an absolute max. • Chapterbook — 10,000 words max • Middle Grade — 35,000 words max for contemporary, mystery, humor, 45,000 max for fantasy/sci-fi, adventure and historical • YA — 70,000 words max for contemporary, humor, mystery, historical, romance, etc. 90,000 words max for fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, etc.

And here’s more useful stuff from Mary: Now for the more practical, everyday truth. Personally — and this sounds extremely crass and judgmental of me, I know — the lower your word count, the more I like you, right off the bat. For example, right now, I’ve got about 150 queries and 8 manuscripts in my queue. And that’s from, like, the last couple of days. That’s a lot of words for me to read. When I get a query for anything over 80k words that sounds really cool, I groan a little bit inside. It’s not the word count, per se, because, if something sounds cool, I really do get excited to read it. It’s that I have so many other submissions on my plate, so I half-dread loving it a lot and having to read all those 80k words. And if I take it on, I’ll have to read those 80k words over and over again as we revise. It represents a big time commitment. I realize this is arbitrary and perhaps lazy of me but… welcome to the world of a very busy agent. Sometimes, we have these thoughts. There are times, though, (and these are the rule, not the exception, I find) when an inflated word count isn’t earned, isn’t awesome, isn’t because every word deserves to be there. I usually find that first-time fantasy, paranormal or sci-fi authors are the worst offenders. They craft a redundant manuscript full of lavish description that moves at a snail’s pace. Then they send it to me and proudly say that there are 155k words and that it’s the first in a trilogy. I read the writing sample and see paragraph after paragraph of dense text with no breaks for dialogue or scene. These are the high word count manuscripts that are problematic. Because, clearly, the author hasn’t revised enough. And if I tell them what really needs to happen — that they need to lose about 50% of their words — they’ll have an aneurysm. But, truthfully, if your word count is anything over 100k in children’s, it better be higher-than-high YA fantasy. And all those words better be good. Cutting words and scenes and “killing your babies,” as I like to put it, is one of the most hard-won revision skills any writer can have. And it usually comes after you’ve done lots and lots and lots of revision in your life. Many debut authors haven’t yet learned how to make — and enjoy — this type of word sacrifice. It shows.

Interesting, honest stuff! I'll be keeping an eye on Mary's blog from now on!

Yours in writing,

Sarah X Word count of this blog - 1, 318!

My Top 10 Villains

Just did this list Sugar Magazine - Queen of Teen publicity - thought I'd share it with you. I do love doing lists. Back to editing Amy 4 now!SarahX

Top 10 Villains

1/ The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The mere thought of that crooked nose and tall black hat makes me shiver. Scary, scary, scary!

2/ Wicked Witch of the West – Wizard of Oz. Another fantastically over the top villain, green faced this time and one of my favourite films of all time. ‘I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too.’ Classic stuff!

3/ Jardis, the White Witch from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis who has turned Narnia into ‘endless winter’. Nasty woman who is killed by Aslan, the lion – hurrah!

4/ Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s book, Misery. Nothing scarier than a character that appears friendly and normal but turns out to be an obsessed ‘number one fan’ with malefic intent. Wonderfully played by Kathy Bates in the film.

5/ All the baddies in the Skulduggery Pleasant books by Derek Landy. There are too many brilliant named villains to choose from: the Faceless Ones, Serpine, Vaurien Scapegrace, Baron Vengeous. Fantastic fantasy-horror books, fantastic villains.

6/ Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding – he caused untold hurt and embarrassment to Bridget and for that alone and for dis-services to girlkind, he deserves to be on this list! He was of course played by Hugh Grant in the film.

7/ The Joker – my favourite comic book villain. Jack Nicholson is pretty great in the film version too. Such a creepy smile.

8/ The Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And the Wicked Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Horrid women, the both of them! I was terrified of them as a child listening to the fairy tales and watching the Disney movies.

9/ Lord Voldemort from J K Rowling’s uber fantastic Harry Potter books, arch enemy of Harry Potter and all round evil guy.

10/ And finally Nan Mahon from Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy. Nan betrays her best friend, Benny, stealing her boyfriend, Jack, and lying and cheating her way into his affections. She’s a nasty piece of work but the truth comes out, Nan apologises to everyone (although I’ve never felt she really means it), and Jack wins back Benny’s heart in the end. Aah, happy ending and one of my favourite books.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Now and then I like giving you a heads up about fab books, and this is one of them. Published for teens, but I'm 41 and I LOVED it. So for everyone with a beating heart really! The official Inis magazine review is below but can I just say this is the most beautifully produced book I've seen in years for teens - textured cover with sky scene, stunning interior images - poems written on scraps of paper (part of the story), highly unusual blue print instead of stark black, it just looks amazing. As Sonya Sones said in her recent review 'I think I might even want to marry this book.'See http://www.theskyiseverywhere.com/ for more details of Jandy.

Here's that review:

JANDY NELSON THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE Walker Books, £7.99 (PBK), ISBN 9781406326307

‘Gram is worried about me. It’s not because my sister Bailey died four weeks ago, or because my mother hasn’t contacted me in sixteen years, or even because suddenly all I think about is sex. She is worried about me because one of her houseplants has spots.’

From the quirky, direct opening lines of The Sky is Everywhere, you know this beautifully produced book is going to be a little bit different. When her vibrant, confident sister, Bailey dies suddenly, quiet music-geek, Lennie Walker is thrown into emotional turmoil. Despite her lack of romantic experience, she finds herself with two suitors, one of whom is Bailey’s ex, Toby who is struggling with his own feelings of grief and guilt, causing Lennie even more confusion. The other boy is Joe, a gifted musician who slowly makes Lennie feel that one day, maybe, she’ll be able to swallow down her sorrow and move on with her life.

The writing is lyrical and full of telling detail, capturing the heady highs and lows of one very special teenager’s journey from grief, to acceptance and, finally, redemption. Lennie’s voice is spot on, funny, poignant and crushingly real. In quiet moments I still hear her whispering hard won teen wisdom in my ear.

This is my very favourite kind of book, the kind of book you don’t just read, you live. I’d highly recommend it to anyone teenager or adult who enjoys heartfelt, magical, redemptive fiction with a touch of heady romance thrown in for good measure. [Sarah Webb]

Style Sheets for Authors

Style Sheets for Authors – a darned good idea! I’ve just finished doing a ‘light Americanisation/Americanization’ of my second Amy Green book and I was fascinated by the differences between the meaning of some Irish-English words and American-English words.

For example American readers have no idea what a ‘gooseberry’ is, ie ‘being a gooseberry’. They don’t have en suites – they have just plain old bathrooms. I guess in America en suites are probably the norm in hotel rooms and houses! And there were loads of other examples.

But there were loads of instances when the meaning of what I was trying to say was lost because – well, because it’s just the way I say it. And it would have been useful for my American editor to have some sort of heads up on these things as they often repeat in my writing.

Hence for the next book I’m going to type up a style sheet for her, a list of all the funny bits and pieces, strange spellings, place names etc – anything I think might be useful in working out what I’m trying to say on paper! Because these are things that are carrying on from book to book if you are writing a series.

You might like to try it too. It’s particularly useful for things like names that are spelt differently to American names – it means the editor won’t have to keep checking on the spelling for each book. In my case, the magazine Clover writes for is called The Gloss, but in the American book they call it the (small t) Gloss. It’s a small detail but it will make life easier for everyone next time around if I jot it down right now on my style sheet.

Anything that makes life easier for my editor and for me makes sense!

See the posting at Book Ends Literary Agency for more on this subject: http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2010/06/style-sheet.html

Let me make it clear. A style sheet is different from a series bible. A style sheet does not include the nitty-gritty details of your world or your characters. It’s for editing purposes. A style sheet should include spellings of names or stylistic changes you’ve made to the spelling of other common words. For example, if you’ve decided that "Prom" is capitalized throughout your book, that would be something you would include on the style sheet. "Prom" is not technically a proper noun.

Yours in writing,

Sarah X

So You Want to Write for Children?

Hi Folks, I'm back from Washington - where I spotted loads of people reading books on Kindles and other devices. This is an article that is currently running in Inis, the specialist children's book magazine in Ireland. Hope it's useful. I have more on children's books, writing a series in particular for you next week.

Until then, yours in writing,

SarahX PS if you like this blog, please do send the details on to friends - thanks! I have a lot of readers now - thanks to each and every one of you. And do let me know if there are any subjects you'd like me to cover - sarah at sarahwebb.ie

So You Want to Write for Children? Some Advice for Unpublished Writers (Inis magazine June 2010)

By Sarah Webb

Recently I spoke to thirty six-year-olds about my new Panda book, Emma the Penguin at the Dublin Book Festival. It was my first foray into the world of the jitter bugs that are 1st classers, and as I watched fellow Panda-person, Gillian Perdue round up her herd of cowboys and teach them how to line dance, I realised just how much I still have to learn about entertaining younger children. But I’d like to share what I have learned with you, in the hope it will prove useful to other writers, especially to those starting out.

Firstly the bad news, it is no longer enough to write an amazing book. There are over 8,000 children’s books published annually, many of which are also amazing. Some of these amazing books will have a lot of money behind them, some of them will be ‘written’ by pop stars or models. Some of them will be written by authors with a long standing track record.

But do not despair. There is a lot you can do to build your profile or ‘platform’ (as the market-eers like to call it) as a children’s writer before your book is published or even accepted for publication.

I’ll start with some general points. It goes without saying that you should put most of your time and energy into your writing. Write for the child inside you, write remembering just how it feels to be 4 or 7 or 9. Dig deep and use your memory. In a recent edition of Inis (Spring 2010) Sophie McKenzie says ‘I remember exactly what it was like being a teenager . . . (I) can vividly remember the years between 13 and 15.’

Yes, modern children now have You Tube, Facebook, mobiles – but they are just different ways of communicating, but emotions don’t change. After all, your parents may not have had televisions or telephones growing up!

If you want to write for children or teens, talk to children or teens, ask them what music they like, what actors, what books, what telly shows. The average 6th class girl’s favourite show is Desperate Housewives – who would have guessed?

Take constructive criticism on your work from people who read a lot of children’s books. Teens make good critics, but younger children generally want to please. You might find an experienced librarian or teacher who will read your work – take on board what they say.

Write from the heart and don’t be afraid of strong emotion. In Jacqueline Wilson’s books siblings jump out of high towers, killing themselves (My Sister Jodie), mums have nervous breakdowns and take emulsion paint baths (The Illustrated Mum). Oliver Jeffers’s latest picture book, The Heart and the Bottle, features a girl whose father has just died. She does not know how to cope with the grief so she takes her heart out and places it in a bottle for safe keeping. Strong stuff!

If you want to write commercial children’s fiction, you must have an eye to the market. Read children’s books – especially in the age group/area you are interested in writing for – library/bookshop recommendations, modern classics, bestsellers and award winners. There are many good guides out there to help you pick fantastic books to read, my favourites being the Ultimate Book Guide series published by A & C Black, a must for anyone serious about writing for children or teens.

This reading will also help you be aware of what modern children like and are interested in – and what works in a book. And also it’s fun; some of the best books out there are children’s books. It will also help you work out what age group you are writing for: early reader, confident reader, teen reader. This is vital. Children’s books are categorised in most shops and libraries by age. Young readers are aspirational – they like to read about children older than they are. If your character is 11, your readers will probably be 7/8 to 11.

Are there any gaps in the market? In a word, yes. At a recent Irish Pen event called ‘New Kids on the Block’, Svetlana Pironko, Director of the Author Rights Agency, Siobhan Parkinson, Children’s Editor at Little Island (New Island’s imprint for children and teens), and Paddy O’Doherty, Children’s Editor at Puffin Ireland, explained what they were looking for. Paddy would like to see fiction for the 7 to 9 age group, but especially 8 to 12 fiction. She says ‘read Puffin books’ and see where the gaps in the list are – and try to fill the gaps. She is very interested in good animal and child stories like Charlotte’s Webb, humour for girls – Louise Rennison type books (she kindly mentioned my own Amy Green books as the type of thing she is looking for), and Fantasy. She said the books must be ‘well written, with original ideas and voice, and a real sense of control’. She wants to feel that the author knows what she (or he) is doing, that they have a sense of authority. And overall she is very keen on reading more manuscripts from new authors – all good news! Siobhan Parkinson is looking for novels for age 9+ and teens. She is personally not a huge fan of fantasy, she prefers realistic novels and she, like Paddy is looking for ‘originality, a strong voice, someone who is in control of their writing’. Svetlana, however is a big fantasy fan and finds this sells best to international publishers. She also likes teenage/crossover fiction and says universal stories are vital; she is interested in books that can travel. In the UK, the publishers are veering towards ‘brand’ authors, authors they can work with over a number of books. And this goes for the picture books as well as novels. Oliver Jeffers for example has just signed a four book deal with Harper Collins for his new picture book series, The Hueys. Cathy Cassidy’s new book, Cherry Crush, will be the first book in a new series for girls.

Once you have written your book, what next? While awaiting publication (or your manuscript to find a home), there are many things you can do to start building your profile. Of course, you must start working on your next book, that goes without saying. But you can also begin creating an on-line presence. A website, a blog or both. A Facebook, My Space or Bebo page. Down the line, your readers should be able to find out more about you online and contact you – it’s part of the job of a modern children’s writer.

Blog about what interests you – whether it be books, writing, music, fashion, the universe – as long as it’s interesting. Decide your blogging market – are you targeting parents, teachers, librarians, or children themselves? For blogging inspiration, check out David Maybury’s blog, the children’s literature blog of record.

Reviewing children’s books for Inis magazine is a good way of keeping in touch with current books and also getting your name out there. And it goes without saying, do join CBI and attend some of the wonderful events and workshops. Attend author events and hear other children’s authors speak about their work. Immerse yourself in the children’s book world and you will have a better chance of spreading the word about your book to the right people when it is published.

Start reading your work to children right now. Think about what you have to offer as a performer. If you want to write for children, these days you have to connect with them LIVE. Find your own special way of doing events – standing in front of children and reading is not enough. The first and only commandment of doing events is: Thou Shalt Not Bore.

I use a lot of show and tell during my talks. I show the audience photos, toys, books and clothes from my childhood and talk about what I was like as a child and teen. Then I use these stories to explain how I became a writer. Marcus Sedgewick uses powerpoint to illustrate his talk on ‘where he gets his ideas’, other writers like Patrick Ness use clipboards to demonstrate their points.

Finally, be optimistic and have a strong constitution. You will probably be rejected many, many times before you make it. Even after fifteen years and twenty-seven books some of my ideas are still turned down. Write because you can’t not write. Multi-award winning writer Patrick Ness says write with joy. I would go further, I would say write as if it’s your last day on this earth. Give 100% every time you sit down at your desk. And hopefully your joy, passion and dogged hope will translate onto the page. Good luck and keep the writing faith!

Sarah Webb is the author of the Ask Amy Green series for young teens, published by Walker Books, UK, Candlewick Books, US, and other international publishers. Her first early reader, Emma the Penguin has just been published by O’Brien Press. She is on the board of CBI and is the Children’s Reviewer for the Irish Independent. For more see www.askamygreen.com or www.sarahwebb.ie She also writes romantic comedy and her tenth novel, The Shoestring Diaries: Julia, will be published in 2011. She loves encouraging new, unpublished writers, and is a regular speaker at the Inkwell writing workshops and courses. She is delighted to report that many of the writers going through Inkwell’s doors are now published.

For marketing and publicity tips for published writers, see Sarah’s article on the CBI website – CBI Info section - www.childrensbooksireland.ie