SVS Agent Round 7: I AM BECOME ANNABELLE, MG Fantasy

Title: I AM BECOME ANNABELLE
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Word Count: 34,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold?

Annabelle is cold. Given all she’s been through at such a young age, and the secrets she now keeps, she handles things coolly and calmly.

SVS Agent Round 8: THE BAKER BEACH DETECTIVE, MG Mystery

Title: THE BAKER BEACH DETECTIVE

Genre: Middle Grade Mystery

Word Count:  52,000

My main character is hot, pretending to be cold.

I'm thirteen and a master at reinventing myself.  I've bounced around a lot of foster families and this one is my last shot.  I'll be whatever kid they want in order to stay.  But my new sister, Soledad, thought I was like her when she picked me from the database: a cold, analytical genius. She wants an assistant just like her to help track down her parents' killer.  But the deeper we dig into the case, the more I rely on my old instincts because the evidence feels all wrong.  Unfortunately, feelings are something Soledad won't accept, even when solving the case depends on it.

SVS Agent Round 9: THE MOJAVE FAILURES, MG Contemporary

Title: THE MOJAVE FAILURES

Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary

Word Count: 43,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold: 

Austin has already boiled over with disastrous results. Cold brought him even more attention. Neither way felt right. He doesn’t understand why his mind works the way it does. Questioning everything until his head pounds like a drum. His newest approach to is to stay lukewarm. But soon he’ll be back to his old life where it can get very frightening, amazingly fast. MOHAVE just might be a way for him to get control of his emotions and succeed for the first time.

SVS Agent Round 10: THE LAST DOUBLOON, MG Contemporary OwnVoices

Title: THE LAST DOUBLOON
Genre: MG Contemporary, "Ownvoices"
Word Count: 36,OOO

My MC is cool, impulsive but not explosive.

SVS Agent Round 11: THE LONE EARTH GIRL, YA Science Fiction

Title: THE LONE EARTH GIRL
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Word Count: 78,000


Is Main Character hot or cold?
Nova is both; she has to be. Her peers are smarter, stronger, and have no problem letting her know it. But’s she’s adapted, having lived with them her whole life, so she chooses her battles. When something strikes her close to the bone she sidesteps, letting it pass. When the blade lodges into her marrow, run for the ships because the mountain flows molten rage. 

SVS Agent Round 12: PROMPOCALYPSE, YA Disaster Thriller

Title: PROMPOCALYPSE

Genre: YA Disaster Thriller

Word Count: 68,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold? 

No matter how much Sam might aim for a calm, cool personality all it takes is a spark to get her emotions flared up. With a tendency to rely on instinct and intuition instead of ice-cold logic, Sam’s spontaneous decisions have a tendency to combust into four-alarm fires. Whether she wants to admit it or not, Sam is fiery and stubborn.

What she hasn’t realized is that the fires in her heart show up for a reason; it’s a burning signal when something needs to change. Now, she just needs to learn how to harness those flames.

SVS Agent Round 13: HIDE ME AWAY, YA Thriller Ownvoices

Title: HIDE ME AWAY

Genre: YA thriller Ownvoices

Word Count: 62,000

Is your main character hot or cold? 

Tanvi believes she's cold. She has practiced years of controlling her feelings and emotions, afraid that she'd repeat the mistakes of her mom. But inside she aches for the warmth of a family and the love of her best friend.

SVS Agent Round 14: THE WITCH AND THE DEMON, YA Fantasy

Title: THE WITCH AND THE DEMON

Genre: YA Fantasy

Word Count: 75,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold?

Ebba is cold as ice under pressure. Forced to fight against the eleven deadliest sorcerers in the world, she uses her wits and levelheadedness to survive. Ironically, her other weapon is blood made of liquid fire. 

SVS Agent Round 15: THE ART OF INSANITY, YA Contemporary OwnVoices

Title: THE ART OF INSANITY

Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction - OwnVoices

Word Count: 77,000 

Is Your Main Character hot or cold?

Natalie has bipolar disorder, so she knows both hot and cold very well. She’s suffered through the dark wasteland of depression, which taught her that a cold brain is infinitely worse than a cold body.  She’s also known mania when her brain is hot – white hot – and she is completely unstoppable.  To know the temperature of someone with bipolar disorder, it depends when you ask. Today, on the verge of having her story told, she’s hot.

SVS Agent Round 16: PANGEA, YA Futuristic Thriller

Title: PANGEA

Genre: YA Futuristic Thriller

Word Count: 81,000

Is Your Main Character hot or cold: 

Annelize would like to be cold. Well, cooler. Her parents would have fewer gray hairs if she were. She wants to model their glacial exteriors, never uttering a wrong word, but Annelize doesn’t have their natures or military training. It’s a miracle she hasn’t been detained at the border due to a poorly concealed scoff. Annelize knows she needs to let some things go, but she’s always found holding back more exhausting than diving in. A trait that causes significant problems at border crossings.

Cover Reveal for PROJECT PANDORA

I'm always happy to share a cover reveal, but even more so when the cover is from an author who came through one of our contests!

Title: Project Pandora (The Olympus Experiment, #1)

Author: Aden Polydoros

Release Date: August 1, 2017

Description: 

Olympus is rising…

Tyler hasn’t been feeling like himself lately, his dreams are full of violence and death, and there are days where he can’t remember where he’s been.

Miles away, Shannon finds herself haunted by similar nightmares. She is afraid that she has done something terrible.

As the daughter of a state senator, Elizabeth has everything she could ever hope for. But when an uninvited guest interrupts a fundraising gala and stirs up painful memories, everything goes downhill fast.

Murder is what Hades is good at. So when two of his comrades go AWOL, he is rewarded with the most exhilarating hunt of his lifetime. For him, the game has just begun.

Author Bio: 

Aden Polydoros grew up in Long Grove, Illinois, the youngest of three children. Aden's family moved to Arizona when he was in second grade. As a kid, he spent much of his time exploring the desert near his home. When he wasn't searching for snakes and lizards, he was raiding the bookshelves of the local library. 

As a teenager, Aden decided that he wanted to be a writer. He spent his free time writing short stories. He was encourage by his English teacher to try his hand at writing a novel, which inspired him to begin Project Pandora. The YA thriller is set for publication with Entangled Publishing in Summer of 2017. He is represented by Mallory Brown of Triada US. 

Link to Exclusive Cover Reveal on YA Books Central: http://www.yabookscentral.com/blog/it-s-live-cover-reveal-1-31

Website: http://www.adenpolydoros.com/home.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdenPolydoros

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aden.polydoros

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450642-project-pandora

Preorder link: https://entangledpublishing.com/index.php/project-pandora.html

Giving Helpful Critique Partner Feeback from Michele Keller

Giving Helpful Feedback is a Craft in itself

Being a good critique partner is not reading someone’s story and saying “This is the best-est thing I have ever read.” (Even if it is.) It is also not saying “Wow, this sucks.” (Even if it does.) Most importantly, it is not telling another writer how to write their story. All three of these are useless as feedback.

Don’t give bad feedback; follow these guidelines.

Learning to be a good critique partner is like learning any new skill: it takes practice to develop. You will make mistakes and so will your critique partners. But learning to give better critiques will not only make you more valuable as a critique partner, it will also give you a set of tools to evaluate the feedback you receive.

Every time I critique a first chapter I always spend a good part of the e-mail reminding the author that opinions are subjective and something that doesn’t work for one person may work for another. This is the unavoidable problem with getting feedback on your work, and the more feedback a writer gets, the more likely that feedback is to be contradictory. That is why it is critical for an author to be able to evaluate the quality of the feedback they receive.

The first step

Always start by exchanging samples (Usually the first 10 pages or so.) This will give you an indication if you like the story well enough to give feedback on an entire novel. Also, make sure that you and your partner are avid readers in the genre/category you are critiquing. As you read through the pages, keep this list in the back of your head, or download a print copy: https://michelekeller.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/check-list-for-cp.pdf

Checklist for Critique Partners

World building:
Is the world consistent: Do all the rules make sense? Do they change for “plot” reasons?
Is the world believable, i.e. could a human society reach the conclusions that govern this world?

Character’s personal world:
Do the character’s circumstances match with their conflict?
Is the problem realistic?
Do you believe this character could find himself in this situation?

Character consistency:
Does the character react in a believable, consistent manner, i.e. do they always panic, or do they sometimes act defiant and sometimes aim to please?

Dialogue:
Is the dialogue natural?
Does it move the story forward?
Is it filled with useless chit-chat?

Conflict:
Does the conflict make sense?
Is the character’s response proportional to the seriousness of the conflict?
Does the conflict begin on the first page?
Does the conflict chain continue unbroken through the sample?
Does it continue to intensify throughout the sample?

Pacing:
Are there unnecessary info dumps? (Overt or hidden?) Are there any useless interactions? Small actions? (daily living things not plot related: getting dressed, brushing teeth)
Is there a good balance between high-intensity and low-intensity elements?
Are the transitions clean? Do the transitions happen too soon, too late?

Je Ne Sais Quoi:
Were you hooked? If so where?
Were you turned off? If so where?

Prose:
Is it clean or flowery?
Overuse of adjectives/adverbs?
Repetitive words? Clichés?
Do the word choices match the character/setting?
Is there too much setting in the prose? i.e. Is there too much slang? Or too grandiose?

POV:
Does the POV work?
Does the action feel too distant?
Are there too many filtering words? Does intentional distancing work?
Are there POV mistakes? Head hopping? Action/elements described that POV character could not have seen?

Try to answer all or most of these questions. Feel free to add your own as well.

What to do when the pages are great:

We all know this feeling. You click open the file and suddenly are transported to another place and time. Words wrap around you in a blissful embrace. The pages are amazing. What are you, a mere mortal, possibly going to say to improve them?

First: It’s OK to say the pages work
Second: It’s not OK to throw out random suggestions just to have something to say.

Now that you have said you like the pages, give detailed reasons using the list above about what you liked. Chances are, the writer will need to hear this because someone else might have told her to change it.

What to do when the pages are not great:

We’ve all been here as well. Every time this happens to me, I’m crushed. I know how much work goes into writing, and when I see pages that need to be scrapped, I’m devastated. Some pointers:

You can say this doesn’t work for me.

BUT…

Now, you must go through the above list and tell the author, very specifically and without editorializing, why it doesn’t work. What do I mean by that? Don’t try to soften to blow by dancing around the issue and using soft language. You are not saving their ego; you are insulting them by treating them like a child. Keep feedback clear and specific.

Example: “Concrete” is a contemporary word and it jarred me out of your ancient Aztec setting.

is better than

Example: Have you thought about whether “concrete” is the best word choice here? I’m not sure if an ancient Aztec person would know about concrete or not.

Really? If you’re not sure about whether someone with stone age technology would use concrete construction, you should probably watch more PBS. The second example insults both you and your CP.

After you have gone through the list and made very specific criticisms, I would also encourage you to find something positive to say about the sample. Usually, I find that if a person struggled with the plotting aspects, her prose might be really strong, or vice versa.

I’ve never seen a sample that did not have one redeeming element. Was there a particularly well-drawn character? Or a place where the story pacing finally clicked and the wordiness evaporated? My favorite: look for places where an element that was a problem previously was handled well. This will let the author know she where her writing shines, which is the best encouragement.

Good Critique Partners Never:

• Blindly apply blanket advice without considering whether it works for this story. (Don’t tell your CP to cut her prolog just because you’ve heard they are out of fashion.) Same goes for telling her to write in 1st POV because all YA is. (Not true)

• Tell a CP something doesn’t work without offering a specific reason why. It is OK to say you aren’t sure why, but don’t just say something sucks without further comment.

• Tell a CP to change something for the sake of change. (If you suggest a change, make sure it actually is an improvement: i.e. raises stakes, fixes a plot hole, etc.)

• Tell a CP to add something just because it’s trendy. (Writing to trends is the fastest way to make your MS cliché.)

Being a good CP isn’t about giving each other a pat on the head. A good CP will challenge you, call you out on your mistakes, and ultimately make you a better writer. But being a great CP will also give you to tools to properly evaluate your own work. The more you critique pages the better you will become at spotting these problems and avoiding them all together in your own work meaning you will spend less time editing/revising with better results. And isn’t that what we all want?

Michele is a former music teacher, turned stay-at-home-mom, turned writer. Her blog Michelekeller.wordpress.com focuses on writing and querying advice for the beginning novelist. She also is a freelance blogger specializing in parenting, education, and family-friendly travel. 

You can find Michele at:

www.activefamilyohio.com

http://michelekeller.wordpress.com

Twitter: @ml_keller

Award Nominee

Happy news for a 2014 Query Kombat success story!

J.C. Lane’s TAG, YOU’RE DEAD, the 2014 Query Kombat Grand Prize Runner-Up and YA Champion, has been nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Children’s/YA mystery! The Agatha Award is presented by the annual Malice Domestic conference, which celebrates mysteries. This is the second Agatha nomination for J.C. Lane, who also writes mysteries for adults as Judy Clemens and was nominated for the Agatha for Best First Novel for TILL THE COWS COME HOME in 2004.

Six young people play a dangerous Game of Tag in public, chasing through the crowds, streets, and buildings of Chicago. This secret, one-of-a-kind, wildly expensive Game offers a macabre twist to the childhood version…if you get Tagged, you get Dead.

Three "Its" have their reasons for buying a place in the Game. Surgically enhanced Brandy is obsessed with destroying a naturally beautiful girl. Untalented Robert covets his target's position as superstar of the basketball team. Brainiac Charles craves a battle against an intellectual equal. Given their elite social status, they reject any possible downside to the contest. Each expects the satisfaction of killing their prey, then walking away.

Hand-picked innocents play as “Runners,” under threat to their loved ones should they refuse to participate: lovely, small-town Laura; celebrated athlete Tyrese; and Amanda, gamer extraordinaire. Alone, hunted by their adversary, each feels a single hope…to survive.

Technological wizardry controls the Game. As soon as Runners receive the “Go” signal on smartwatches locked to their wrists, the Game rockets them through the city, from the El to Michigan Avenue to the Lincoln Park Zoo. There is no time to rest. Every thirty minutes the Runner’s location is transmitted to the It, which steadily diminishes the Runner’s chance of ever reaching Home Base alive.

The Game will not end until someone is Tagged, so the Runners must choose how to play. Will they accept death? Murder their Its? Or find a way to use individual strengths to stop the Game before anyone dies?

Order your copy of TAG, YOU'RE DEAD from Amazon or wherever books are sold.

J.C. Lane is the author of Tag, You're Dead, a thriller for YA and adults. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children, where she spends her time shuttling her kids to events, baking and cooking, and binge-watching Netflix. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime and also writes mysteries under the name Judy Clemens. Those books include the Anthony and Agatha-nominated Stella Crown mysteries, the Grim Reaper series, and the stand-alone LOST SONS. She loves collecting Santa Claus figurines, Van Briggle pottery, and fun bookmarks. Connect with her at www.Jclanebooks.com.

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