Team Snow 8: THE GREEN WELL, YA Fantasy

Title: THE GREEN WELL
Genre: YA fantasy
Word Count: 81,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

The eternal summer has lasted beyond memory. Isobel doesn’t know spring, winter, or fall, so she’s never encountered cold, much less snow. Neither of those forces would do much good against her enemy, the immortal Alder King, but she admits she finds the idea of hurling a snowball at his face delightful.

Team Snow 9: BALLAD OF A TEENAGE CANNIBAL, YA Humor/Fantasy

Title: BALLAD OF A TEENAGE CANNIBAL

Genre: YA Humor/Fantasy

Word Count: 60,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Cannibals, like slightly drunken moths, are naturally a little slow, a little prone to veer off course. So sending down a frigid blanket of snow would be just the ticket Billy would need to keep him a few booted steps ahead of their hungry agenda. Not that his axe couldn't take care of few eager mouths, but a little help from some sub zero temperatures would be just peachy. Plus, a wicked snow fort never hurt a soul. 

Team Snow 10: OPHELIA, YA Gothic

Title: OPHELIA

Genre: YA Gothic

Word Count: 84,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

My MC would find the sun more helpful in fighting her biggest obstacle, since the answers to some mysteries are buried deep and snow would make it that much harder to unearth the truth. The sun would also shed light on the harsh realities Ophelia needs to learn about those closest to her.

Team Snow 11: THE CURIOUS WILL OF JOHN GLENARM, YA Mystery

Title: THE CURIOUS WILL OF JOHN GLENARM

Genre: YA Mystery

Word Count: 80,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Sun!

Because you know what doesn’t mix well with snow? Construction. Below a certain temperature, cement foundations and brickwork won’t set. Shingles won’t seal, and are apt to be blown off by high spring winds.

If there’s one thing Julie learned from working in her grandfather’s construction business, it’s that business BOOMS in the summer. Which would be the perfect time for say, working on a half-finished mansion – left to you with more strings than a marionette puppet. Not now, not with winter coming.

Team Snow 12: KID FIRE AND THE SECRETS OF THE PIANO BOX, MG Mystery

Title: KID FIRE AND THE SECRETS OF THE PIANO BOX

Genre: MG Mystery

Word Count: 41,000

My Main Character would use snow or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

 Sonny (a.k.a. Kid Fire) likes the cold and damp of remote Vallon Island. Until he doesn’t.  He’d hoped that here there’d be no such things as unexplained fires that he could be blamed for, but two blazes near his school have put Sonny in the “hot seat” and his only hope is for a spate of frigid rain until he can come up with a plan to clear his name. Whoever is starting the mysterious fires that are popping up must be stopped with a cool and cunning trap—and Sonny needs time to figure out how to set one.

 

Team Snow 13: THE PRINCESS OF TANGLED DAYS, MG Fantasy

Title: THE PRINCESS OF TANGLED DAYS

Genre: Upper MG Fantasy

Word Count: 86,000

  

My Main Character would use snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Here in the heat of the c-c-castle kitchen, if anyone looks past my scullery rags to wonder what sort of mind I might possess, their c-c-curiosity is quickly dispelled when I open my mouth to sp-sp-sp-speak. Upon hearing my st-st-stammering words, I’m dismissed as slow-witted, whatever their c-c-content might be. 

Oh, but the chill of winter makes everyone sp-sp-speak like I do!  And layers of warm clothing hide my rags!  So it’s the snow that I cherish, when I can go cr-cr-crunching across the c-courtyards of Castle Stonegruffle and, at least on those wonderful, frost-filled evenings, seem a normal g-g-g-girl.

  

Team Snow 14: RILEY COOPER, INVENTOR, MG Contemporary

Title: RILEY COOPER, INVENTOR: EMOTIONS AND LASERS

Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary

Word Count: 47,000

 My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle:

Riley would use snow, not just for his heat-seeking snowball launcher, but also as his own nature-made personal freezer to cool his lasers. And that means he wouldn’t hold his breath when mom reached for the mysterious container in the back of the refrigerator. And his parents wouldn’t ask the dreaded question heard throughout the neighborhood (they never used their inside voices) “Riley, what have you done now?” He needed a secret snow freezer because he couldn’t tell them the box contained an emotion-changing laser he invented to save their marriage. 

Team Snow 15: #MoMoLives, MG Contemporary

Title: #MoMoLives

Genre: MG Contemporary

Word Count: 53,000

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battler their biggest obstacle:

My main character, Tim Ellis, would find snow the most helpful. It’s great for making fake Sasquatch footprints. On the other hand, it also makes it harder for the person faking the prints to hide their own. Hot, dry weather isn’t as good, the ground gets too hard and dusty for the plywood cutouts to sink into the dirt deeply enough to make a lasting print. Snow would also make it easier to spot a brown-furred Sasquatch sneaking up on him, unless it’s got snow caked all over it from making snow angels. Don’t laugh, it could happen. 

Team Snow 16: SIXTH GRADE SECRET SERVICE, MG Humor, Mystery

Title: SIXTH GRADE SECRET SERVICE

Genre: MG, humor, mystery, adventure

Word Count: 49,000

My Main Character would use snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Abraham Truman, leader of the team who rescued the sixth grade class president from her captors, would once again call on Arlington Adams, who loyally served as Tech Officer during the mission. As the son of a janitor in Washington D.C., Arlington has access to the Lost and Found, a cache of misplaced spy gadgets his father recovered while cleaning various federal buildings. One such gadget, code-named The Snow-Baller, can produce 100 snowballs per second. Arlington would use these non-lethal, frozen projectiles to neutralize threats to school cabinet or ensure victory during playground snowball fights.

Contest Goodreads Lists

More and more books are being published for entries that were once in one of my many contests. There's the adorable MG from last year's Sun vs Snow, Karma Khullar's Mustache. I just heard of a two book deal for an entry from last summer's Query Kombat. That one isn't even announced yet. It's getting hard to keep track. Isn't that wonderful!

So I made a handy-dandy list! If you were in Query Kombat, New Agent, Sun versus Snow, Nightmare on Query Street or Picture Book Party and now have a publishing deal for that book, please add your book to the Goodreads' list!

From Contest to Contract

You didn't have to get your agent from the contest. Maybe your agent came afterward from a query. But once a part of the family, always a part of the family! You also don't need to have been picked by me. If any of the other hosts picked your entry--this is for you also.

Please spread the word to your friends. I'm sure you have better memories than I do. I don't want to miss anyone!

And honor our former contestants by picking up copies of their books!

Bonus for the mentors and judges:

The mentors and judges work so hard to help out with the contests. They deserve a list too! If you were a judge or mentor for any of my contests, please add your books to this list. And you know what I'm asking next--help out the writers who give back by buying their books!

Writers Who Help Writers 

So don't be shy, add your books to our lists if you qualify! And join the contest fun so you might be the next person on the list!

UPDATE: I guess authors can't add their own books to lists anymore. Nudge me on twitter and I'll add your books. 

Getting the Call with Diana Connors

Can I just say that Yes, I've played Pokemon. I want to live in a place of pajamas. And thumbs up to characters suffering more. Congrats, Diana! You deserve this!

Just when you’re thinking about shelving a book (or: You never know when that YES might come)

Back in 2010, when I was young(er), I wrote my first book. In my naïveté, I thought it was the absolute best thing ever written (ok, maybe not so, but the concept was pretty neat). I googled about subbing my super shiny novel to publishers, and imagine my surprise when *gasp* I found out you were pretty much required an agent to sub to traditional publishers abroad.

Now, I’m Portuguese. Agents aren’t a thing here (there is a single agency operating in Portugal, though I’d only find out about it in 2013). Moreover, getting published here is extremely hard unless you have a) money (Vanities are a thing here, and people actually believe it’s the way to go if you’re unknown) or b) connections. I had neither, and it’s one of the big reasons I don’t write in my native tongue. Another is that it’s much easier to find CPs when you write in English, but I digress.

So, there I was, a fresh young thing who didn’t have a clue about querying. I did my research. I wrote a crap query letter. I sent it out. Of course, I got mostly rejections, but among those, a few requests came. One actually led me to become friends with a great agent (who incidentally reps my favorite authors of all time), who’s actually been a godsend and helped me so much throughout the following years. Bless you, Russell, and the patience you had towards a girl you don’t rep.

Needless to say, I wrote another book. Then another. I found out about twitter contests and Pitch Wars through my partner in crime, BFF, Alaskan Snowflake and all-around amazing person, Dana. I never got into any of them, but I met the greatest (my Walruses, Renée, Dakota, and so many others!) people through those contests. Back then, I was playing with a NA Fantasy, and those who read it said, “Diana, bb, I’m sorry to inform you, but you got the main character wrong. You should write about Zéphyrine.”

To which I said, “Nah, you’re wrong. I KNOW BEST!” And then I flipped my table and buried myself in my cocoon of writerly depression.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t know best, and they weren’t wrong.

Once I saw that, I wrote a book for Zéph. I entered contests (didn’t get into any). I entered PitchWars again and this time around I actually got requests! I got my hopes up, and then got crushed (absolutely crushed) when I wasn’t picked.

I can’t complain about the mentors. They were all extremely nice to me. One (hiiii Laura!) even wrote me an e-mail that had me ugly-crying (good tears, though), while another (who wasn’t even on the age group I subbed to) critiqued my query (hiiii Jami!). Max Wirestone (oh, awesome Max, may your life be filled with hot dudes and magic sprinkles) gave me a referral to his agent. So, after I’d licked my wounds, I went out querying.

I got requests. I actually got into a contest (Nightmare on Query Street), and got more requests. Amidst all these, I sent a query to Natalie Lakosil, at Bradford Lit. Two months later, she asked for the full.

I sat down and waited. I started working on Sightless (remember that first novel I mentioned? It’s a revamp, with the same concept, but different everything else), and I LOVED it. I was actually beginning to say, “Screw A Trace of Madness, that’s not going anywhere. THIS, THIS IS IT!”

(except I didn’t say “Screw”, but a far nastier word, which I won’t replicate, so as not to tarnish Michelle’s blog with my colorful swearing)

Again, I was wrong. SO WRONG.

Fast-forward to mid-January. I get an e-mail from Natalie saying “Reading it, and loving. Will get back to you this week!”

Cue panic attack.

“WHAT DO I SAY TO THIS?” I asked in our Facebook group for Neurotic Writers. A lot of them left comments along the vein, “Diana, calm your pants down, and reply politely, saying you’re happy she let you know.”

So, that’s what I did. Then I waited. Until the next day, when I get an e-mail from Natalie with a header that said, “OFFER OF REPRESENTATION”. Yup, all caps. She asked if we could talk the next day, and we set a time.

Cue me screaming at the office (I was working). “EDGAR, ZÉ, I GOT AN OFFER OF REP FOR MY NOVEL!” while I typed a DM to my aforementioned partner in crime, BFF, Alaskan Snowflake and all-around amazing person, Dana, and called my dad on the phone. Then my boyfriend.

As you can imagine, by then I’d morphed into the Energizer Bunny. I was electric. My cats stared at me funny when I got home, and my bearded dragon gave me the stink-eye because I kept taking him out of the terrarium so we could do a dragon-dance, which, in turn, only increased my speed and attack, stats I didn’t need to be raised at the moment. (if you play Pokémon, you’ll get this, and I apologize. If you don’t, it begs the question of WHY AREN’T YOU PLAYING POKÉMON?)

Then, the time came. I was curled up in my pajamas (it was already evening for me, and my house is a place of pajamas), waiting. Then Natalie added me on Skype, and we talked. Or rather, I mumbled and she talked.

Natalie had great comments on my book, and an awesome vision. She told me the strengths, asked me if I was OK with some changes (which I was), and then the time came to nudge everyone. I got some “Congratulations! I don’t have time to read it right now, but best of luck!” and some rejections, but even before I send my nudges, I was pretty sure I was going to sign with Natalie. When she said she wanted my characters to suffer more, it felt like a match made in heaven.

And that was how I ended up represented by Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Lit AND became agency sisters with one of my Walrus CPs!

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Diana was born in Lisbon, Portugal, but lived in Estremoz for the next eighteen years. She moved to Lisbon in 2007 to study Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico and stayed there ever since. In her free time, she writes, paints, and  games. Otherwise, you can find her in my day job, where she works as a designer and tester of serious games. Keeping her company are two awesome kitties, Sushi and Jubas, and a bearded dragon named Norbert!

Her portfolio can be found at http://pinguicha.deviantart.com or http://pingusportfolio.tumblr.com. Together with three colleagues, she made Sightless, the runner-up for the 2014 Innovation Awards. Since then, she’s been creating new game concepts that can be tied into her novels, thus giving them a wider reach.

Making the Peril Real

My favorite authors in fantasy and science fiction are the ones who can convince me the characters are in true peril. I need to feel that the characters have a very real shot of dying--not every moment of course, but when the action heats up. That always makes the book feel so much more real and closer to me. Readers need that sense of true danger and possibility of the ultimate failure to make us care.

Somehow, the best authors can overcome the thinking in a reader's head that a main character or primary characters won't die. (Especially a true worry if there are sequels coming.) With a few exceptions, a main character is too important to the plot and to the author to be killed off willy-nilly. We simply need them too much. But to really connect readers need to believe that there is a chance it could be the end.

I tried to accomplish that in Grudging and hope I succeeded. 

So how do the good authors manage to make readers suspend that safe main character mentality and fear for the character. Writers have a couple of tricks.

Show the Danger- A well-crafted book will find a redshirt. The author will show the danger is real by killing off some secondary characters, like they do in StarTrek. Send in the unknown actor in the red shirt to die and prove the situation is serious. There instantly becomes a sense of real threat, especially if the secondary character is well-liked and innocent. If it's cleverly managed, a reader won't even notice the trick.

Injuries Matter- Jim Butcher does this so well in his Dresden Series. The main character suffers a variety of real and debilitating injures. He/She bleeds, gets shot, gets beat up. Suffers physically. Another good example is the early Die Hard movies. Poor John McClane is a member of the walking wounded by the end of the movie. 

This can be hard to do for an author as we love our characters so much. Authors might want a character to suffer emotionally, but physical suffering seems to be harder to do. Unfortunately, you have to let them bleed to make it real.

Ixnay on the Healay- Don't use magic to fix a character. When a character can magically heal and does so over and over, all sense of true danger goes out the window. Sure, you can really take your characters to the brink, but one problem--no one will care anymore. The fear is gone. So if you're going to using magic healing in your book, make sure there are limits to it and use it sparingly.

No bluffing- Don't have a villain that bluffs and never follows through. Let your antagonist do actual "bad" things and have real motivation for the acts he/she commits. The more hated and fearful they are, the more believable the peril will be. 

Do the Deed- Some authors actually do the deed. They kill off the main character. This necessitates another character stepping up to take their place and runs the risk of reader backlash. Some readers will lose all interest in the story and stop reading. This is what happened to me and Game of Thrones. I backed away. But it can work beautifully if there are other loved characters, such as in Brandon Sanderson's SPOILER SPOILER LOOK AWAY IF YOU PLAN TO READ HIS BOOKS----


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Mistborn series. How can you doubt anyone could perish when your favorite character and star of the show just bit the dust? It's the ultimate in peril.

So there are a couple of ways to make the danger real. 

Let me know your favorite book with a real sense of peril. And if you know of other methods, please share them!   

To Scrivener or Not to Scrivener

There's been a lot of talk in my writing groups and on twitter recently on whether it's better to ditch Word and use a software tool meant for writers. I'm not here to give an opinion either way. What works for one is not necessary the right tool for someone else. Use what works best for you.

Instead I want to hear what you think and become informed on the choices. Which software do you like?

So many writers swear by Scrivener, saying it changed their life and made writing so much easier. From what I can see it allows users to move scenes more easily, split up chapters, and make notes about anything you want--like what feels incomplete about a chapter and what you need to come back and add. It lets you convert easily to Word or epub documents. It seems to have many benefits, including outlining. It's got bright and shiny gadgets.

My reasons against switching from Word comes purely from my own writing style. I don't outline. I don't need to convert my manuscripts to publish-ready formats. I rarely move scenes around because I write in a linear fashion. And I keep notes in my head or in another Word document that I just keep open.

Sometimes I go even lower tech and keep notes on paper. Here's the notebook where I list the POV used in each chapter for Faithful. It lets me find each character easily and doesn't cost a dime. When I got my new laptop, I had to pay to install Word again. I need convincing to pay more for another software package.

So opinions? Which software do you use? What functions of Scrivener make it worth the extra money?