Wednesday, June 29, 2011

X is an Unknown

If you’ve noticed that I’ve skipped letter X in my ABCs of writing middle grade fiction, then I congratulate you on your powers of observation!  Since I’m working at making this a useful resource, I didn’t want to include a contrived post about X. The same goes for Z. I considered a few ideas:

X Marks the Spot – All about the place in your novel where your protagonist finally gets what they want.
X is for X-ray Vision and Other Superpowers – Hey, this actually sounds pretty good. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it. I’d love to write a novel with a superhero character.
X is for Unknown – What is that mysterious element that makes your novel stand out to agents and publishers?

Z is for Zoos – How to write cafeteria scenes with middle grade characters, or all about the behind the scenes research you need to write about zoo animals. I could include a list of books that include zoos. Hmmm.
Z is for Zest – Different ways to bring your novel alive that don’t include zoo animals

Z is for Zzzzzzz – How to keep your readers from falling asleep
In the end though, I just don’t have enough material to make one of these work. I don’t rule it out for the future (or maybe a creative guest post).

Now that I’ve pretty much come to the end of the alphabet, you may be wondering what’s next. Well, I’ve enjoyed learning and collecting links for my ABCs series on writing middle grade fiction. So, I plan to continue adding to it, but not in any systematic order (I foresee a lot of posts starting with letters C, F, and P). There are lots more topics to consider…and I’m open to suggestions. 
What do you want to know about writing middle grade fiction? If I don’t know, I’ll try to find out and consider your ideas for a future post.

1 comment:

  1. Your ABC list gives great tools for thought. Thank you for compiling it. My WIP is almost complete, and I plan on reviewing the ABC list as I revise. In fact, I'm at the X marks the spot place right now.

    As for what I want to know about middle grade fiction, I enjoy whatever you post because you think of things I mull over but haven't put to words. Thank you.

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