There Are Days -- another Essay on Editors

Yep, it was a day just like Alexander had. And I'd been looking forward to it -- nay, anticipating it. It was going to be wonderful. I would win the lottery. I would be the teacher's pet. My editor would congratulate me and tell me I had done it. I had written the most perfect YA short story.

If your mother did not read Judith Viorst's Alexander stories to you when you were little or you did not read them to your children when you were big, I must tell you you must. They are wonderful and true and, without a doubt, they are your stories, too. That morning I did not wake up with chewing gum in my hair. I have only one brother and his name is neither Nick nor Anthony. And he hasn't pushed me down in the mud in many years. But that day I understood Alexander's pain.

My daughter, who is also my editor, has been trying to get me to write something YA for a number of years. For those of you out there who are not writers (bless your hearts) YA stands for Young Adult, probably the most salable genre in fiction today.

Because YA fiction needs to be focused on something and someone young adults can relate to, the most obvious element is a young adult protagonist. The Young Adult Library Services Association defines young adults as being between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Wikipedia states that authors and readers of YA literature more generally accept the age parameters as sixteen to twenty-five. 

This year has been the year for me to expand beyond my comfort zone into nonfiction and now YA fiction. I never thought I'd like nonfiction because it's so limiting. I mean the story has to be, you know, true. And I'm here to tell you I have a long history of embellishing true stories, adding a flourish here or there, maybe a bit of embroidery around the cuff. I mean, with a little imagination you can always make a good story better. But I did it a while back.

On to YA fiction. I've always read what is now called YA fiction -- Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, etc. But I write in a somewhat understated way. I have to trust my readers to bring their own intensity to my work. I guess I have never trusted young people to have enough life experience to have their own intensity.

Silly me. It's because they don't have enough life experience that they have not lost their intensity. At my age, I know the sun will rise tomorrow. That having survived the dangers of today and yesterday and the day before that that I will be able to meet the challenges of tomorrow. They don't. Every moment is make or break. Every challenge is world-changing either as the greatest victory or the most abject failure. Intensity is what they do best.

Realizing that does not help. How do I write a fitting intensity? Can I do it in my normal low-key style or must I morph into a slam-bang Marvel Comic Book writer?

Then there's the question of topic. High school dating? No. Werewolves and vampires? Impossible! Super powers? Not likely.

Wait a minute. Super powers. Why not?! My character wouldn't have to be faster than a speeding bullet or able to start fires with her mind or foretell the future. I figured out a super power that I could accept as plausible. Well, not really. But close enough. And Grace liked it when I pitched it to her.

Then a situation that a YA reader could relate to. Yep, got that, too. And I could relate to it. Else how could I write it?

And I wrote it. It was great. Intense. Suspenseful. Engaged all the senses. (Not smell, but teens don't seem to have an effective sense of smell anyway. Think about the gallons of scent teen boys slather themselves with. And it doesn't seem to dissuade teen girls from hanging out with them.)

I was so pleased with myself. I emailed it to my editor and waited for her response. Of course she has a life, so she couldn't read it fast enough. I mean she did it when she could which was not fast enough. But she did. Finally. And called.

"It's not YA," she said. 

Nobody loves me.

Then she added, "It's a good story. Well written. Clean. Flows well."

Everybody hates me.

"If you were reading this story, who would you say was the main character?" she asked.

I didn't have to guess. It was the father.

Think I'll go eat worms.

"The daughter should be the main character," she said.

Editors! Who needs 'em?! 

Obviously I do. Not just to check my spelling and punctuation. Not just identifying continuity problems or pointing out the use of the same action verb too many times. Or passive verbs that should be action verbs. Or eliminating expository writing. Or avoiding non sequiturs. Etc., etc., etc.

I needed her to point out the most painfully obvious error. The daughter should be the main character in a YA short story.

Okay.

I don't like worms.

I am a writer. I can do this. Rewrite!