Writers Who Are Teens

Notice how I didn't put 'teen writers?' Being considered a 'teen writer' or even a 'young writer' has always had a negative connotation to me. To me, it implies your writing will suck, no matter what, and your experiences are somehow less than of an adult's simply because you are young.

Adults will tell teen writers their writing sucks because they are teens and don't have the mature experiences of an adult. My problem with this statement is it infantalizes teens as people who cannot think reasonably on their own, who have to somehow grow up and step into the magical world of adulthood to suddenly get everything. I'm almost twenty-one, so I'm definitely not that far from being a teen, but I can tell you even as you grow up, you still aren't going to get everything. You never will. Adults will tell you that you must experience more, do this, do that, in order to be a great writer. While I will admit experiencing something often produces better writing, this is with anything. I certainly cannot write about the Igbo people in Africa, even though I've read about them, because I have never met them or even been to Africa. Research could help me write about them, but research and experience are two very different things, and it shows in your writing.

The great thing about being a teen is you can make an excellent young adult writer because you are young adults. You are experiencing your life as a young adult, you know what's in, you know what's out, you know what teens say, do, think, and feel, and you don't have to go out of your way to experience being a teen. It's just there for you. Now I think I hear the condescending writers exhale deeply as they say 'But they're biased about their experiences and can't articulate them well!' You can never articulate an experience immediately after it happens. I had a huge fight a few years ago that took me five months to be able to accurately convey on paper. I haven't found a magazine for it yet, but I have been receiving positive rejections that personally tell me why they liked my story but couldn't accept it because they either already had something similar, or it was between me and another person. Plus, I've been lazy about submitting anything lately.

Yes, it does take experience to be a good writer. This is a given. Someone who just starts writing in their thirties is going to be in the same boat as a teen who just starts writing. The only difference is they have more experiences to draw upon and perhaps a better grasp of grammar (but as a writing tutor, I can attest to the fact that I know more young people with a better grasp of grammar than many of the adult students I get. This isn't bad. This is just to say these adults have been away from school long enough to forget things.). I was also stubborn as a teen and taught myself everything there was to know about grammar in middle school, so sentence structure was never a problem for me.

Now the condescending writers step in and ask, 'How were you as a teen writer?' Well, I published a short story that wasn't in a teen magazine, but when I first began, of course I sucked, and I don't attribute this to my being a teen. I just attribute this to my being an inexperienced writer, just as I would attribute any poor writing to being inexperienced. A friend of mine recently submitted a short story to our magazine, and I'll readily admit said friend is in mid twenties, and said friend's story was how I pretty much wrote in high school. Said friend also experienced far more than I did in high school, but said friend is also an inexperienced writer who just needed a good critique. I just needed a good critique back then, and I do regret not realizing writing books existed back then, or that there were people who actually *gasp!* critiqued your work for no money. I'd probably be querying my novel by now if I had realized there were those resources available for me, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't discover them until my senior year of high school! The internet wasn't so easily available to me throughout middle school and half of high school.

Age doesn't matter, oh writers who are teens. It's experience that matters. Writing experience. Read lots. Get lots of critiques. You may be published in your teens. You may not. That doesn't matter. How well you write has nothing to do with your being a teen.

Fiction Writers and Literature

A friend of mine is currently struggling with her English major right now due to the literature ALL English majors, no matter the track, must take. She is on the creative writing track, but currently grappling with her confidence to be able to analyze literature effectively to complete this degree.

I am an English major as well, though I am on the rhetoric and composition track. I feel her pain. While I love to read literature and can write well-written literary analysis essays, it's not my passion and something I likely won't do ever again once I graduate.

In any case, somebody decided to pose the argument that all creative writers must be able to effectively analyze literature to write compelling prose. I cry poppycock at this statement. While I believe writers do need to know the basics (theme, symbolism, ect.,), I do not believe they need to know how to analyze literature to the depths an English major must do to write compelling prose. Plus, we English majors constantly have to read the classics, and let's face it: the classics aren't for everyone. While writers must give them a chance, they shouldn't force themselves to read the classics if the classics don't fit their taste. What worked then doesn't work now. No one would get away with writing wordy prose you find in many 19th century classics. Also, while writers should constantly expand their horizons, it's often best for them to pay careful attention to the type of prose they write, whether it be middle grade, young adult, fantasy, or sci-fi, and not the type of prose that Emerson or Austen or Orwell writes, because, again, what worked then will not work now.

Writers need only analyze literature the way writers should, not the way English majors would. Writers only need to analyze literature insofar as plot development, character development, and the like are concerned. They do not need to analyze literature that concerns, for example, how the social mores play out in a particular story, or how women are subtly treated as inferiors to their male counterparts, or how space plays an important role in a particular story. That is for English majors, not writers, to do. What writers do need to pay attention to is how Main Character is developed throughout the story in relation to other characters, or if Main Character even develops at all. Writers need to look for what the author did good and why and what the author did poorly and why. This is not something we English majors look at or are even allowed to criticize. We English majors can only critique the argument of another person's analysis, but we cannot critique the author's writing the way writers should know how to. What literary critiques analyze is far different from what writers analyze. Literature classes DO NOT TEACH YOU how to analyze literature the way writers would. They only teach you how to analyze literature the way literary critics would, or even readers would--even then it is primarily literary critics who would analyze something as space in a story. Readers, in a commercial sense, would read a story similar to the way a writer would: how the plot, characters, ect. are developed, though they do not necessarily pose solutions on how they would fix it as writers would.

All in all, writers analyze literature differently from English majors. So don't despair if you as a writer cannot analyze literature to the depth and complexity of an English major. Your story can still be compelling without you as a writer trying to expose some social truth. If readers want to analyze literature to that depth, they'll often find something you didn't even realize you had written. I don't even think most literary greats of the past wrote with the idea people would find all these things we have today. Poor writers are often those who do try to write with purposed complexity, rather than just trying to write a compelling story with compelling characters readers will relate to. And I am speaking about this as a literary magazine editor who has received stories in the past that try to expose some social truth but often spend pages upon pages with characters musing over some object that is supposed to be symbolic of some greater truth. It's convoluted nonsense. Just write what you want to write and don't worry about trying to put some literary depth to it.

Issue 2 of The Corner Club Press

Our issue 2 is out, and you can check it out here: http://www.thecornerclubpress.com/issues.html

Follow me @AmberSkyeF for The Corner Club Press updates, and fan us on Facebook just by typing our magazine name in the search bar.

Writing Males and Females

As someone who is very interested in cultural anthropology along the lines of gender, this is one question that has baffled me for a while. Why do writers constantly ask how to write X versus Y gender? Are we really so different? *Note: my entire argument comes from arguments in my anthropology class.


Cultural anthropology would say, no, we are not that different because our perceptions of gender are entirely culturally conditioned. Think boys aren't as introspective as girls? Think again. Boys aren't culturally encouraged to be introspective, whereas girls are culturally encouraged to be introspective. Sure, there are differences between boys and girls at a young age, but the mental differences are small and eventually close entirely after a few years. Since I write primarily YA, I will talk about boys and girls of the YA genre.

Looking back upon my high school and middle school years, I realize a lot of the differences between boys and girls are cultural and not biological. Boys in middle school and high school aren't any more sexual than girls (and the alarming teen pregnancy rate is proving this). Boys, however, are encouraged to be more openly sexual than girls, which is where the confusion lies. But if you remove the social stigma, girls can be just as "perverted" as boys. Back in middle school (same with high school), I was the girl who absolutely abhorred boys for thinking and talking the way they did about other girls. But what I realize now is I was repressing feelings boys were openly allowed to show. If I hadn't repressed those feelings, I would have been just as bad as the boys. Girls are taught to repress their sexual urges, while boys are practically encouraged to do so. Culturally, I believe this is somewhat changing, but I still see this in YA books. Why?

I tend to relate to male characters in YA books more because they are more realistically human than the girls are (there are a few YA books with real human girls, like Gemma Doyle and the like, but they are the exceptions to what I'm describing). Girls have sexual urges just as much as boys. Girls in real life also give vulgar descriptions of boy parts just as much as boys in YA books give vulgar descriptions of girl parts (see Eric Devine's Rooted in Lies in The Corner Club Press issue 1 coming out March 15th for some proof), yet this is not being reflected in YA, and it greatly upsets me. Sure, I'm writing a book with a female character, but she's also a 19th century girl and does not use contemporary slang to describe male parts, just as 19th century males did not use contemporary slang to describe female parts. In many YA books I've read with females, the girls describe hot guys in very romantic notions, the authors completely forgetting that real-life girls do use vulgar descriptions to describe pecs, butts, and, um, shall we say, packages? And maybe this is why I prefer books with males going after females instead of females going after males, because the latter is too romantic and not human enough. I could argue on and on and on about culture conditioning, but that would completely skirt the main argument I'm trying to make.

People, these differences between genders are culturally conditioned. I get upset every time a writer asks how to write a particular gender, because males and females do not psychologically think that different from each other. Any differences between us our by-products of culture, and I think we as writers should really start breaking that. There are many males with stereotypical female traits, just as there are females with stereotypical male traits--and they're not necessarily homosexuals. If you want to write a female character with an abrasive manner, go ahead. Masculine and feminine traits (excluding biological differences, which don't encourage how males and females think) are purely cultural and not at all biological.

So now this goes into the next question? Why worry about gender at all? Well, you can't deny that males and females experience different things, but we experience different things because of culture. Culture says males are this and females are that, and so of course things are going to be different. So our thoughts might be a little different as well, but not due to anything biological. If we really want to close the gender gap, I think we should start with YA books and show that males and females don't really think that differently. We should also show that, yes, these characters think the same things, but culture either encourages or represses these thoughts. Take Gemma, for example. She is every bit as human as me. She's strong, she's naughty, she's unrestrained. She also has a steamy sexual encounter in a dream akin to how boys view females on a daily basis. The difference between how a boy would handle it? That boy wouldn't be ashamed, but because Gemma is female, she is ashamed, but something tells her she shouldn't be.

So don't concentrate on writing a male or a female character. Concentrate on writing a human being who just so happens to be X or Y gender. In fact, I would argue if someone were to write me as a character, many people would mistake me as a guy (if my character weren't physically described) because, while I do enjoy stereotypically female things, my manner is very abrasive and unapologetic (manners I see typically associated with male characters in YA more than female characters).

Critiquing Creative Writing on the Spot

As an editor for a magazine, an assistant to a freelance editor, and a tutor of a writing center, I find it interesting how the critiquing dynamics dramatically shift between each. You approach chapter one of a novel much more differently than you approach a short story, and you certainly have to approach both differently if you're being forced to critique on the spot, just like a tutor must.

Well, there isn't a whole lot of advice for critiquing creative writing on the spot, so I'm going to dish out some tips from my minimal experience with tutoring. Writing centers usually receive a lot of technical writing papers, but there are the few rare who come in with creative writing, and while the tutors are helpful, many may not be creative writers and so don't know exactly how to approach a creative writing piece. Here are a few tips on how you, as a tutor, or even a beta reader forced to crit on the spot, can approach a piece of writing you aren't able to devote extensive time to:

1) Look at the hook. Does it open with character? Description? What? Short stories, especially, need to open with the character, because opening with description is often pointless. Setting description is often best saved for later, AFTER you've established the character. Stories are about characters, so they need to start with characters.

2) How long does it take for the story to start? In short stories, depending on the length, the story needs to start within the first page. "Scattershot," a short story I accepted to go into The Corner Club Press, is a 7,000 word short story whose plot immediately unfolds within the third paragraph: the MC hears a metallic ping, a piece of glass flies at him, and he discovers three holes in his window. So readers expect at this moment for the story to be about uncovering who did this. And this is exactly what the writer delivers, with a few exciting twists. Any short story, really, regardless of length, needs to start within the first page. Because they are so short, the mentality of reading a short story versus a novel differs. People expect more immediacy in a short story than they do a novel, so that immediacy must be delivered to maintain reader interest.

3) How exactly does the story start? With action? With dialogue? You often don't want to start a story with dialogue, as you want readers to care about the character first before they can care about what the character says. It CAN work, but there needs to be a reason it can't be saved until after you've introduced the story in a non-dialogue way.

4) Are you able to get the gist of the plot? Short stories only have one plot. Never really any sub-plots. If there are sub-plots in a short story, it's often going to be too short to draw those sub-plots in and create a satisfying close.

5) Is there any other way the writer can go about telling this same story? The job of an editor, I've learned, is to break the box and look beyond what's there. The job of a beta reader, I've also learned, is to look at what's already there and make it better. The job of a tutor, I think, should be to break the box and offer other ways of going about the same thing. Can this scene be introduced earlier? Is there a better way you can go about getting your MC from point A to point B and make it more interesting? Is there something else you can add to develop this particular scene?

6) What's the POV? How many main characters are there? The POV, whether first, second, third limited or omniscient, needs to be easy to follow. With third omniscient, the biggest mistake I see writers make is giving more time with one character than the other. The other mistake I see is introducing one character, building up the importance of that character, then deliberately switching POVs mid-scene without having established the importance of the character the POV is switching to.

These are just some of the ways to go about critiquing on the spot, and probably the only ways you'll really have time for. But these are essential points to hit upon. Addressing copy editing errors is important, but not as important as addressing these issues first.

Contest!

Here's a link to a contest on the YA Lit Six:

MS critique, book and blog button enter to win: http://yalitsix.blogspot.com/2011/02/contest.html

Tweet, blog, Facebook, do whatever you can think of.

The Corner Club Press Issue One Teasers!

Here they are, finally! *Note: Flash fiction teasers will not be posted simply because there is a danger of giving too much away with such short pieces.

Gehenna by Kevin P. Keating

This is what they do to him, to the old man, after a lifetime spent in quiet contemplation among books of eschatology.

They parade him before the students on high holy days, not unlike the mummified thumb or shriveled toe of a medieval saint or mystic, an artifact to be revered as a symbol of piety, celibacy, wisdom and dread. Recently forced into retirement, the old man is given the title “Instructor Emeritus,” an honorific bestowed upon those priests too ancient and addle-minded to continue teaching without embarrassment or scandal in the classroom. Though rare and often ritualized, these appearances are meant to satisfy his need to be among the students, his proverbial “lost flock” whose intellectual curiosity seems to dwindle with each passing year.



Into the Unblinking Eye by David Copper

Whitfield manor was empty and uncomfortably quiet. The rumble of dark brown bodies – bustling, fumbling, fussing, slipping into creaky corners to evade the glare of young Master Whitfield – had receded long enough to grant Tillie a long-desired moment of repose between laundry and the preparation of supper. But something was wrong: the door to Young Master Whitfield's bedroom was ajar and a sudden thud inside snapped Tillie into wide-eyed alertness. Seconds later, Abbey, Tillie's nine-year-old niece, scampered out, a pint-sized tornado of lead-heavy breaths and incriminating tears.


Note for the Bright Star by Tom Sheehan

Fred Chandler, editor of the weekly and only newspaper in Quipilanta, The Bright Star, enjoyed looking out one side of his shop window the day the issue was printed. He’d already placed the front page in the window and watched early risers stop to look at the page, read some of the items on the page, and pass on. A few other shop owners, real early risers like he was on most days, with a lantern to guide them to their work place, read the page under the light of the lantern, swinging their lanterns to assist in their reading. The lanterns threw soft shadows into his editorial office. The lighting activity was, he had decided early in the career of the paper, a significant part of issue day.


Rooted in Lies by Eric Devine

I looked where he directed: Jamie’s ass was cresting out of her jeans without panties to obscure the view. It was a cherry of a backside, and as I took in the rest of Jamie's contours, I realized how Huff had pointed her out. It was in a proud manner, as if he were displaying a trophy, and it made me wonder. "Did you tap that?"

His entire body shook at the question, "No." He slumped in his chair. "But I would."

We sat for a while, not speaking, and I itched inside. Huff, my only friend, looked like a clam attached to his desk, and I wasn’t sure if the question was too much too fast. But ever since the move--really, before--I’d been listening to my older brother Scott’s advice: New school, new girls; get laid as fast as you can. Wasn't that why Huff was pointing her out? He sat up then, as if he’d been forming the next question the entire time, "You ever hit it?"

The truth was on my tongue, but Scott's voice filled my head, again: Just do it. Don't be some fucking angel your whole life. Shit, a solid ten lies can turn you into somebody else.

Planting Roses in Iraq by Walter F. Giersbach

She stood and waited until he nodded, wanting to make sure he had really chosen her.

“My grandfather was a lawyer,” she began softly. She read methodically in remarkably good English, her words marching evenly over her lips like orderly soldiers. “He worked for the Ministry of Justice and wore a white shirt and smelled like roses when he went to work every day. He worked for justice. Then the war came and I saw them take my grandfather away. They shot him and two other men and put their bodies in a hole outside our town and the machines covered up the bodies. I saw this happen at night. My father and mother and brothers cried but they could do nothing. I said we should dig him up and my father slapped me. In the spring I planted a rose in the ground where he lay sleeping and watered it and white roses grew. Then my father took our family to Basra and we were helped to go to Syria and then to America. I hope someone is watering my white roses. The end.”


Scattershot by Mark Willen

He was washing the vegetables, somewhat more cursorily than if Sally had been there to supervise, when he heard the noise—a kind of metallic ping. He couldn’t quite place it, neither its nature nor its location, and went back to washing. He was wiping his hands on his already soiled khakis when he heard the second ping. The living room. Definitely the living room. He went to investigate but found nothing amiss. Then, just as he was leaving the room, he heard the sound again, and his eye caught some motion, a tiny piece of glass flying into the wall and falling to the floor. He picked it up and turned it around. He saw holes in three of the foot-square panes that made up the living room windows.


We are the Dead by Dorian Dawes


The First was all that we knew in our city of dead. His thoughts were our thoughts. We were the enactors of His will. We had no purpose but His purpose. And in our ignorance, we believed that this was good.

Within our conscious there are but scattered echoes of what was before the First. They are the remnants of His memories, fleeting visions that we embrace when they come and abandon when they are gone. Up until now, they have been useless to me. Up until now, I have not needed to know.

Now, I think they are more important than anything. They are certainly more important than this existence we lead, this unlife.

Money or Circulation?

Based on a question I found on AbsoluteWrite, I decided to blog about it, particularly because I'm an aspiring author as well as fiction editor of The Corner Club Press.

So, the main question was this: Would you submit to a magazine that paid well but had poor circulation?

I automatically knew my answer was no. For one thing, I care about readers more than I care about money. I want to be like Emilie Autumn, who calls her fans 'muffins.' She cherishes and adores her fans, and I want to be one of those writers that cares about her fans as well. Call me idealistic, but while I write what I want to write, I also want to bring smiles to those who are going to read my work. And I WANT people to read what I've written. It's not enough for me to simply hand out my work on-line or whatever and say 'read it.'

For another thing, unless you're able to support yourself on writing alone, which many can't, you shouldn't even be writing to pay your bills. Most writers have a steady paycheck, and writing just gives them extra money. Money's nice and great, but I'm willing to bet that extra money will go to things you don't even need. There are writers out there who make a steady living off short stories, but it's because they can afford to. Some of them might even have taken a chance by quitting their jobs and jumping into the short story market, but for writers like me who don't want to be kicked out on the streets because I can't pay my bills, I'm going to have a steady job until I know I can support myself with writing without having to risk anything.

And another thing, a market that has poor circulation has poor circulation for a reason. That market is likely going to do nothing to bolster your credentials as a short story writer. Sure, editors, like myself, only care about the story and not the credentials behind the story, but magazines that often have poor circulation are magazines that'll probably fold in the future. Don't you want to be with a magazine that'll archive your work for a long, long time? A magazine guaranteed not to fold in the near future?

I'm being critical, I know, of those who opt to sell out and run for the money rather than the circulation. But you shouldn't be writing for the money in the first place.

Call me judgmental, call me whatever, but I've never been the one to sell out. Money's nice, but money can't tell you what a great story that was, how that story changed someone's perspective on life, or whatever positive things fans say to authors. By all means people should be paid for hard work, and I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't desire money for our work, but at the same time we also need to be realistic and realize the short story market is damn competitive. You should just be happy you're getting published at all, particularly because ones that do pay well sometimes have less than a 1% acceptance rate.

The Corner Club Press Still Seeking

Just want to update that we are still seeking submissions through February 5th. All submissions thereafter will be considered for issue 2. But we will not be closed. We will simply be putting issue 1 together while giving ourselves a good time frame to collect submissions for issue 2.

The Corner Club Press Open for Subs!

(This will be our unofficial logo for now)

You can read all about our dream start on our actual website, but here's a little information:

We're open to most genres/themes.
We offer a token payment of $50, but this is ONLY for THE best short story/THE best poem in each issue. After issue 1, we plan to start taking donations, but for now this thing is purely funded out of our pockets.
I myself would personally love to see some YA stories, but am open to a lot. Recently accepted a western story, so my tastes are pretty all over the place.
We love stories with surprising twists. Enthrall us. Literary stuff doesn't hurt either.
Dazzle us.

Here's our link: The Corner Club Press

Nailing That First Chapter Part One

Two days ago I attended this nifty little webinar, which you can attend again, I believe, January 8th. I would have blogged sooner, but fever took me, and so I was down for two days. But now I'm better and back with a little advice on nailing your first chapter.

First chapters, for many writers, are probably the hardest chapters to write. Mark McVeigh even says a lot of writers write the first chapter last. You can argue that's the case for me, because the first chapter is the only chapter I had to DRAMATICALLY change, but in reality, that's the first chapter I re-wrote and nailed--according to my independent editor.

In any case, first chapters are crucial to nail because this is the chapter agents are going to first lay eyes on, the chapter that's going to make or break your chances for a partial, and the chapter that gives them an indication of your writing skills. I could go on and on about its importance, but I'm praying a lot of you reading this already know why it's so crucial.

So what makes a successful first chapter? What is the anatomy of a successful first chapter? For starters, you have your hook. Here's the hook of my first chapter: "Rivulets of blood stream down my back, splashing red dots on the parquet floor that look like cherry spatter." What does my hook establish? Voice, for one. Perhaps a little bit of setting, as well. The only time I see the word 'parquet' used is books taking place in the 19th century. There's also a little bit of conflict, too, because there's a reason blood's sliding down my MC's back.

Your hook needs to establish your character and some conflict. A hook involving description setting isn't going to do it, because your character is not involved, the setting is not your character, and while you may be trying to establish mood, you can do this after you've established your character. There are tons of examples of hooks you can find scattered all over the internet, but one thing most hooks have in common is change: something is about to happen that often causes change in the character. Those are the best hooks, in my opinion.

After the hook, you have your first 150, which is another chance to lose the attention of a literary agent. You have a lot to establish in 150, but you also don't want to put too much in the first 150. You need to establish setting, character, voice, and conflict (the reason why you're opening up with this particular scene in the first place), and while these are only four things, they can in fact be a lot if you haven't properly established these in the first 150, and I can tell you a lot of writers don't. My best advice for the first 150: don't even think about the rules, because if you think about them too hard, think about what you still have left to establish, you might end up with a convoluted mess. That's what I did when I re-wrote my first chapter, which took about two and a half hours, probably, and I did my best to ignore all the "rules" out there while unconsciously bringing them out in my writing. But, according to my IE, it's a successful first chapter, and while a writer just starting may not be able to manage that, it takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. And being able to handle criticism and realizing when that criticism is going to change your chapter from diamond in the rough to a polished gem.

Even after your first 150 you're not safe. An agent can still choose to drop out of your first chapter if you can't hold his or her attention with tension, voice, conflict, characterization, and so on and so forth. And those are seriously hard to manage. Next blog post, I'll tell you what successful first chapters do and how you can possibly write one.

CONTEST!

So, after requesting an iTunes gift card to use for myself, I realized at the last minute that my iPod had crapped out, so an iTunes gift card is essentially useless to me. :( But...this does give me an opportunity to give it up as a contest prize!

What do you have to do to win this? Essentially, you have to read chapter one of Witch Tourniquet, which you can find at Amber Skye F. Then, you have to answer one question so I can make certain you actually read it and didn't just say you read it for the points.

Question:

Who steps into the room just as Alice is about to attempt suicide? (This can actually have two answers depending on interpretation). This will be worth a lovely 10 pts.

After you've answered my question in the comments box, you have chances to earn more points, so start social networking away. 1 pt. for each post on facebook, tweet on twitter, whatever, and post the links to these things so I know you're not lying. :P Do all this in the comments box and please post your REAL name.

Here's what you need to post:

Contest at Amber's Editorial Dream. Prize for the person with the most points!

There, that shouldn't be too much for those Twitter users.

Get networking!

Also, the winner will be posted under the supporter's tab on my website. If you're already under there, then you've just gotta work for the gift card.

Well, have at it!

Contest will run until December 31st.

Differences between Writing Tutors and Editors

Okay, so the title is misleading, because, let's be real, there isn't much of a difference between us. If you've ever tutored at a Writing Center before with the policies my Writing Center has, then you'll know that, as a tutor, you're not supposed to provide an editing service. This is a misnomer, because this is essentially what tutors do. Let me explain.

First, I want to mention what is basically the only difference between a tutor and an editor are. A tutor actively engages his or her client in the editing of his or her own paper. An editor passively engages his or her client in the editing of his or her own paper. That's really it. Oh, and tutors who work at a university are usually limited to 30 minutes or an hour and we can't touch client papers, but that's besides the point.

What I mean when I say actively engaged is the client usually reads his or her paper aloud to the tutor, since reading a paper aloud can help spot mistakes. The tutor will then engage the client in dialogue about potential problem areas, whether or not the paper needs to be restructured, if the thesis is strong or not, and other issues. The tutor will right then and there, while the client is editing his or her own paper, help come up with a solution to fix any problem areas.

An editor passively engages clients by pointing out problem areas while the client is not around, and then usually e-mailing these corrections to the client. The editor and client can then choose to engage in dialogue after corrections have been submitted, but the editor usually works alone without active client input.

I've been tutoring for about a semester, and I feel a semester is long enough to conclude that what we do as tutors is provide an editing service, despite what Writing Center ethics may claim. It might be politically incorrect to say we provide editing serves, but we nonetheless do.

Editing, as defined by the English Oxford Dictionary on-line, "[is to] prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it."

What we tutors do is help clients modify, correct, and sometimes condense their papers so they can prepare them to be turned into their professors for a grade (and some do come in for publication or portfolio help). We might not be writing on their papers, but we are still providing them the sort of feedback an editor would provide.

How do I know this? I have an independent editor. Many Writing Centers claim they don't provide editorial services because providing an editorial service would mean (and this is just my interpretation) writing the paper for the client. Editors don't even do this. In fact, my independent editor will tell me about her other clients, and sometimes she'll say to me, "I'm not writing the books for them. That's their job." I'm going to assume this is the same for an editor of a publishing house as well.

I have received feedback on three chapters of my novel thus far, and the criticism I have received is the sort of criticism I dish out in the Writing Center. She will suggest changes I should make, and I do the same thing with clients at the Writing Center. She won't make the changes for me. She will point out a few grammar errors, and if they are consistent, she will let me know and not point out the rest of them. I do the same thing with clients at the Writing Center. I'll point out a few errors, tell them why they're errors and how to properly use this piece of punctuation, but I will not point out all their errors, particularly if they are consistent throughout the paper. She'll also help me restructure if need be, and I do the same thing with clients at the writing center.

While I as a tutor can't provide as in-depth feedback as she can as an independent editor, this is only due to time limitations. Otherwise, writing tutors and editors provide roughly the same feedback. So to claim tutors don't provide editorial services is a misnomer. We might not be writing suggested changes on their papers, but we are verbally suggesting changes for their papers, and this is still helping the student prep his or her paper to be graded. We aren't prepping their papers to make a guaranteed A, but independent editors cannot also guarantee that a client's manuscript is going to be published.

Of course, tutors do function as teachers more than editors do because we are teaching our clients, but a good independent editor will also function like a teacher as well--just in a different way.

Praise to the Independent Editor

I used to greatly discourage independent editors, even just last year. I used to claim they were a waste of money because an independent editor doesn't guarantee your novel's going to get published. Instead I recommended wonderful beta readers, because if you can find the right one, they can be just as good as an independent editor.

Now here I am writing a blog post on praising independent editors and what an extremely useful asset they are to the world of publishing. Perhaps I'm being biased because I get my IE for free in exchange for my intern services (no monetary payment involved. Good. Because I only work 20 hours for every paycheck I earn twice a month). But seriously, the critique I received on my first chapter was something beta readers never ever pointed out.

First, I want to clarify that my beta readers aren't bad at all. In fact, they were excellent and I am EXTREMELY grateful for what they've done for me. Beta readers are wonderful when it comes to finding out just what type of audience you can target for your novel, and whether or not you have the interest of the average person. However, they don't always have the knowledge of what's actually going on in the publishing industry and what's going to sell versus what's not.

My IE actually does, and so her critique stemmed mostly from what agents are looking for (and a little of her personal tastes). Beta reader critiques generally stem from their personal tastes. 90% personal and 10% by the book. Heck, as an aspiring IE myself (or editor of a pub house), my critiques are still 90% personal and 10% by the book, but the feedback my IE is giving me is slowly changing that. See? She's even useful for my dream career. Not only am I learning to improve as a writer, I'm using her feedback to improve as an editor. A little job shadowing, I suppose.

Okay, so I'm super glorifying IEs when I know people out there who have been accepted by agents merely through beta reader feedback alone. Everyone has a different view. Most of my beta readers seemed to have enjoyed my original chapter one, but I took my IE's feedback to heart because she had a point. My chapter one, though it may appeal to a certain group of people, had no marketability, no reason for an agent to want to keep reading. I mean, there might be an agent out there who'd enjoy it, but I want to attempt to appeal to as many as possible and not just receive a partial/full or two here and there. I want partial/full requests from a variety of agents.

So this is where we get into some serious gray area. As I've said before, I know people who have landed agents with just beta reader feedback alone. However, I don't think I can be one of those people. It might be because my story, as my most recent beta reader pointed out, is radically different from anything she's ever read, and she's years older than I am. So because this story is different, it's probably safer for me to receive the feedback of a professional rather than the feedback of someone who doesn't always have that leg into what's going on.

All in all, use your judgment when choosing whether or not to go on beta reader feedback alone, or to choose an IE. IEs can get pricy, but a good one is invaluable, as my IE is.

Zombie Photo Shoot

Yesterday I did a zombie photo shoot for Sorean: A Gothic Magazine, and these are all the rejects. I originally wanted to include three, but decided on only one of them, as it was the strongest of the three and does a lot better standing alone than in conjunction with the other two I wanted to include. I'm not posting the one that's going to be published, but here are the many edits I experimented with on the rejects:

New Adult

So I totally should have blogged about this a lot sooner, but I have a million other things I have to do, and blogging non-profit is not at the top of that list.

In any case, last Wednesday's YALITCHAT was also its anniversary, so Happy Late Anniversary, YALITCHAT! Although we were supposed to be primarily talking about YALITCHAT itself, somehow a lot of us got wrangled up in the topic of New Adult, a term used strictly by St. Martin's Press, but not really an official genre or anything.

New Adult, as I've gathered, is about college-age students, kids, people, adults, what have you. It revolves around college lives, with other plot elements, like maybe fighting off an evil dragon while trying to earn a law degree at Harvard.

Our biggest argument revolved around whether or not teens would buy "New Adult" fiction. There were several assumptions they wouldn't because they can't really relate to the college crowd. There were also several assumptions they would because of their curiosity about college. Then, there was the final verdict from someone in the publishing business that it would neither appeal nor sell to them.

Truth is, this is all a bunch of assumption, including the final verdict. We don't really know what teens want. We can only guess and throw caution to the wind. The YA genre itself was probably a chance publishers took back when it was still new. I think New Adult (or whatever) will be the same.

All in all, what do I think? I think New Adult would sell to a teenage crowd. And maybe it's because of my own high school experiences, but I was genuinely afraid to start college. I know I wasn't the only one either. It's scary stuff when your teachers are constantly drilling into your head how much harder college is going to be, how strict the professors are going to be, and how SO VERY important it is to get a college education. Some high school students just feel like they can't live up to these expectations, and so this fear of college is genuine.

In fact, the high school I graduated from has dropped tech prep altogether and is forcing everyone on a college prep track. This can't possibly be the only high school that has had this insane idea. I'm sure there are thousands of high school students all across America with this ridiculous pressure to get into college.

And this pressure, I'm going to assume, is new. I'm assuming this based on what my parents have told me. My parents have told me that standardized tests didn't exist at the schools they went to, that the pressure of getting into college was almost non-existent, and no students were ever pressured into taking high-level classes like AP or dual enrollment or gifted. Dual enrollment, from what my parents have told me, didn't even exist in their day!

So because of all this, wouldn't a high school student want to read a book that shows college isn't as crazy as everyone makes it seem? Sure, the experience differs for every individual, but that's the same with a high school experience. My high school experience wasn't bad at all, and was quite bland compared to the high school experiences I've read about in YA novels. My different experience didn't make the novel any less likable or relatable: it just gave me a different perspective.

Okay, so maybe back then so-called New Adult would have been a hard sell. But it's unbelievable how, even in one's freshman year, college is being stressed to such an extent that I believe it's increasing drop-out rates (perhaps I'm exaggerating and going insane, but I seriously think this pressure increases them). Freshman are no longer told to enjoy their high school experiences and make the best of them. They're told to start thinking about their careers now, what college they want to go into, and so on and so forth.

Because of all this pressure, I sincerely believe teens would be interested in reading about a freshman's experience in college. Maybe not sophomore, but definitely freshman, because college is so new and that teen mindset is still present.

A Quick Note

I just want to note the reason I deleted my literary posts is because I recently started taking a Literary Criticism class, and for the whole first day we spent talking about what literature was. We inevitably came to the conclusion there is no easy way to define it, and my awesome PhD-wielding professor said she would find someone calling commercial fiction literature totally acceptable.

I Have a Dark Secret

So if you don't know yet, I intern for Georgia McBride's fabulous YALITCHAT: YALITCHAT as its Editorial and Communications Intern, but primarily editorial.

Several weeks ago she asked me to edit the entire website, and I did. Well, yesterday, she sent an e-mail back reporting that people were saying there were still typos. I just went O_o to the whole thing, because I panned each page about three times AND used MS Word to boot. She then told me she was having two other people, plus herself, I believe, check the pages as well.

This got me thinking about editing in general, both novels and magazines and anything that's ever needed editing. Self-editing is included in this as well.

Have you, as a writer, ever sent anything out to a beta reader, only to have it returned with the beta reader pointing out things that look like they should have been obvious (blatant typos) before you sent it off? That's happened to me on several occasions. It's crazy how the human eye, even if you are being as careful as possible, can still gloss over things that should seem obvious.

When I went back into editing the YALITCHAT pages, I did find several typos that I couldn't even believe I glossed over! This makes me grateful that Georgia did employ others to look as well.

And novels: we all know it takes an entire editorial staff to spruce up a novel, and some novels still get published with typos. Crazy right?

As for me, when I'm editing a piece for Sorean, I'll go over it about six times, or however many times it takes me to stop finding errors. (Believe me, I do reach that limit, unlike with my own stories.)

But all of this just has me thinking how even the most simplest thing, whether it's a one-page report or a memo, can still have typos because of how careless the human eye can be, whether or not you're trying to be careful.

In conclusion, my dark secret is that editors are far from perfect. Some people out there get absolutely annoyed when they find typos in published novels and believe it's some sort of amateurism on the editor's part. But these people have absolutely no indication of what the editorial process is like, or even understand their own eyes, for that matter.

Those tricky, deceitful eyes!

Why Can't They?

A lot of my blog posts revolve around random discussions I happen to find on various writing boards and what not. This discussion revolved around teen fiction versus adult fiction (silly, discussion, in my opinion), and a lot of people said they enjoyed adult fiction more because you can write about a broad range of experiences that you can't with teen fiction. My only answer to this is why? Sure, I'd find it hard to read a novel about a teen doctor (there are teen geniuses, but I don't think the average teen wants to read about those, because teen geniuses can be perceived as arrogant), or even a teen lawyer. But as far as emotional possibilities, there are just as many emotional possibilities, if not more, for teens as there are for adults.

People seem to forget that there are teens in the world who have experienced more than some adults will ever experience, and have seen more of the world than some adults ever will. Just because they're young doesn't mean they lack experience. Experience can be gained through age, but if you're forty years old and have never moved from where you were born and haven't really traveled, then I'm not going to trust you as a voice of authority on life experience. I'm going to trust the sixteen-year-old army brat who has moved around with his or her parents and has visited exotic places, like Italy, Africa, or Japan.

Continuing on, someone replied that it's ridiculous to write a story about a teen who goes to war and makes enemies. Said person also used an example that adult fiction is more complex because a 40 year old can get arthritis while loading a gun (a teen can have an epileptic attack while loading a gun. *gasp!* Teens and epilepsy? That's preposterous!). In any case, why can't a teen go to war over the summer and make enemies, especially if it's a fantasy novel, an alternate universe of sorts, that requires teens to join the military once they turn sixteen? It's very possible. Hundreds of years ago, that would have been the case with teen males.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is an excellent example of some of the things teens are capable of. The Hunger Games is the story of Katniss Everdeen in a place called Panem where, to show the power of the Capitol, names are drawn from different districts, and these children are forced to fight in what are called The Hunger Games. They essentially fight to the death, and the last one standing wins. This is analogous to a war veteran. So, if Katniss Everdeen can win The Hunger Games (and I loved The Hunger Games because it seemed so real), then why can't Katniss go off and fight in a war? Granted, she's female, and there are problems with that, and yada, yada, yada, but why can't an author put her in that situation? Suzanne Collins is very realistic with Katniss' skills, and I never once found her a haughty character for all the things she can do that I can't, because her skills are portrayed realistically.

Teens are so much more than the ditsy, hormone-infested, love sick teens that some YA novels portray them as. Teens throughout history have been kings and queens, authors and poets, martyrs, fighters, parents, and a multitude of things adults are or have been.

So why can't YA fiction touch upon the broad range of emotional experiences that adult fiction touches upon?

A Book's Success

[I'd like to make a note that I am not at all an expert on what sells a book or anything of the sorts. This is merely my opinion on a matter I've found troubling for quite a while. ]

We all know about the insanely popular series called Twilight that has sold millions. There are a lot of people out there who question why it's so popular, and then there are others who blame it on advertising, these said advertisers marketing to the "dumb" the "weak" the "beyond stupid."

I find this offensive, not because I'm a fan of Twilight, but because, although marketing helps get word of a book out there, I do not believe it fully helps the sales of a book. Advertising is an amazing tool to use to get the word of a book out there, since word of mouth can only take a product so far. That's all it does. It doesn't force people to buy books.

And you know what the great thing about books are? You can try them out before you buy them. You can read the entire thing in the bookstore if you want, the first five pages, the blurb, the plot summary, all while never having to pay for it. If you want the book after all that, you can choose to buy it. Of course, some people make the mistake of buying a book they find out they don't like, but I know for me that's rare. Most books I buy are books I end up loving because I know how to look through a book and see if it's something I know I'm going to enjoy.

With this in mind, why do people believe advertising contributed to the insane success of Twilight? Sure, without advertising, Twilight may not have sold as much as it did, but those same people who bought it and loved it could also be the same people who bought it and hated it. Advertising didn't tell them to love Twilight. The people who bought the book chose to love it.

Of course, I know there exist sheeple out there who love something just because it's popular, but for the most part, I think Twilight sold itself. There's something in it people love, and I hate it when elitists debate why it's so popular (negatively, mind you). People love it for their own reasons, and to whine about its popularity is just plain arrogant.

Do I wish some of the books that I love could be more popular than Twilight? Well, yes, but I think that's the case with anyone who loves a book he or she feels is underrated.