Advice for a kid?

Nice to meet you, Cardcastle - wow, you are prolific for being so young. Actually, that's prolific for any age! I don't have any advice for you about the publishing world because I'm new to it myself, but if you need some feedback, you might try the Share Your Work forum.

Hope you stick around. There are some other teen writers here, too.

It's a pleasure to meet you, despite how your accomplishments make me question how I've been using my own time. (Just kidding. Well, sort of.)

If you'll spend a while checking out the boards, you'll find one dedicated to critique of query letters. Read several threads and you'll get the general idea of what needs to be in every query and what should probably be left out.

It's late where I am, and I'm sure someone west of me will be able to produce a more coherent reply for you--but I still got here first! (Edited to add: Did not!)

Maryn, impressed with your productivity

Cardcastle...You sound like your heart is writing. WONDERFUL. Passion. James MacDonald goes into details about query in the novel section. Take a look. Also, Miss Snark has a great blog and she just had a contest of query letters. Take a look over there. These pros straightened me out.

I am a teen writer as well, but quite frankly, you're far more prolific than I am. There's lots of teen writers around here. It just might be hard to find most of them.

It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope you stick around here.

GO TO BED! DO YOUR HOMEWORK! PUT THAT DOWN! GET YOUR HANDS OFF THAT MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX!

All good advice for teens.

Better advice: Read the thread titled "Learn Writing with Uncle Jim".

Cardcastle said:

Oh, thanks… I have no social life. LOL. My sister says I act like Luna Love good (sp?) from Harry Potter, so that might explain it.
I don’t post my writings online. It’s sort of a family policy. So, I guess I won’t be doing that.
How many other teen writers are there here? I should like to meet some of them.
Nice to meet you.

Click to expand...

I used to be a teen writer. But that was a long time ago.

Piece of advice: get yourself a social life. It makes you a better writer. Observe people and what they do. Observe yourself with other people.

You'll need this to make credible characters. Heck, you might even enjoy it!

Good luck

Any particular reason not to post your stuff online? The critique thread is password locked as far as I know, or you could find a small closed critique group.

They might be able to give you some feedback as to why your book was rejected. it also *really* helps you in your own writing to see where others have gone wrong and how to fix it.

Advice? I have plenty, and it's all free.

First, finish your works.

Second, as you finish them send them out to legitimate publishers only. As they get rejected (and they will be) send them out again the same day they return.

A "legitimate publisher" is one that can get books physically onto the shelves in bookstores. If you don't see their books shelved, you aren't interested. Aim high.

Get the publishers' guidelines; follow them to the letter.

Welcome!

My advice? Write. Then write some more.

Then snoop around here for answers to your other questions. Anything you can think of, do a search... there's a wealth of information lurking here!

Welcome to the boards! These boards and the members are so very helpful. I myself am finding myself in need of crit partners and am weary of posting anything online so someone suggested to me to join RWA. Even though I live in Canada (they are international) and I can't go to meetings but I can join online group. Maybe if you ask around their might be a group for your style of writing that is similar to RWA.

Best of luck and happy writing
sherry

Good luck and welcome

SeanDSchaffer said:

Also, I would recommend you research your prospective publishers with great care; always look to third-party sites with a good reputation to see if the company you are thinking of working with also has a good reputation. Wonderful examples of this would be Preditors & Editors, WriterBeware, and AgentQuery.com.

Click to expand...

Ditto. Before you decide to send your work to any potential publishers, research as much as you can. There's lots of scammers, some unqualified and/or incompetent but well-intentioned agents and publishers, as well as many good ones. Do what I did: Learn all the basics and pitfalls on the craft and business of writing as early as possible. That way you won't practice making the same mistakes for many years.

I originally came to AW because of NEPAT and Bewares and Background Check, more than a year ago following the release of Atlanta Nights. I've become pretty familiar with the material there, so if you need help wading through it, I'll be willing to help you.

Some GOOD and RELIABLE resources that have helped me become more educated about the world of writing and publishing:

Critters Online Workshop. For Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror writers who want feedback on their work. With over 5,000 members, there are several pro writers and up-and-coming writers, and there's a long list of successful sales that occurred after some writers' stories and novels were Crittered (critiqued). I was an active member for quite some time, though I've now gone inactive. I still highly recommend it (if you write in these genres), and I learned many valuable things from the experience.

Preditors & Editors. An industry watchdog website maintained by DaveK (David L. Kuzminski), which provides basic information about the writing and publishing business. It also includes an extensive list of agents, publishers, magazines, and other related things, with ratings that range from Highly Not Recommended, Not Recommended, Recommened, and Highly Recommend, as well as warnings about certain agents and publishers.

Writer Beware. The watchdog group sponsored by SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). Founded by Ann (A.C.) Crispin and Victoria Strauss, it provides all the information you need to know regarding scams and undesirable agents/publishers. They provide warnings on those who have investigations regarding certain agents/publishers. They answer people's questions about specific agents/publishers, and see if their files come up with anything negative. Victoria posts often around here, so you can also ask in B&BC.

For more updated accounts, specific incidents, and descriptions of living life as an industry watchdog, there's also the Writer Beware blog, written by Ann and Victoria.

The Association of Artists' Representative (AAR). An organization of agents who must abide by a code of ethics. Agents who are AAR members are not allowed to charge reading fees or any fees for that matter before a sale is made. If you find an agent on the AAR website, they are generally completely legitimate.

[WARNING: THERE IS A HUGE INFODUMP AT THE FOLLOWING LINK. READ IT ANYWAY.]

Everything you wanted to know about literary agents. Very long, but it contains extremely valuable and important information about finding an agent. At the end is a (very very long) list of TNH's Making Light blog posts relating to writing and/or publishing and/or scams. It wouldn't hurt to read all of them (though reading the comment threads might hurt your eyes after a while).

So, that leads to Making Light. Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden are both experienced editors at Tor Books. Please take their word seriously, as they know what the hell they are saying.

And of course, there's the unstoppable Miss Snark. She is a qualified literary agent whose blog is well-respected by those who are in the publishing business. Don't be inclined to not trust her because she posts under a pseudonym. She answers readers' questions, posts about writing-related topics, critques readers' queries, and delivers it with a heavy dose of snark. No one knows for sure who she really is, but that's not important. She wouldn't be able to get away with what she says if she had used her real name. Believe me, listen to her, and you will be much happier later on down the road.

That's all I have for right now. I'll post more links if I find any later.

Good luck.

I can't really offer any advice other than what's been given. Your passion is extremely admirable, as is your work ethic. The one thing I'd like to add is an emphasis on what was said earlier by Willowmound:

Piece of advice: get yourself a social life.

Click to expand...

As a fellow teenager, and one who has gotten ensnared in this before, let me just say this: don't get too wrapped up in your writing so that everything else fades in importance. Our teen years are for exploring and getting away with being unfocused. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't prioritize, naturally, but just be careful.

Disclaimer: I know nothing of your life outside of what you've told us, and I'm not saying that this is what WILL happen to you, I just thought I'd mention it.

All in all, welcome to Absolute Write, and best of luck! I'm sure you'll learn a lot. I know I have. Nice to have you here!

Read read read. Write write write.

Practice really does make you better.

No matter how many rejections, keep working. You won't succeed if you don't try.

Hey! *waves hands in the air* I'm a teen writer too. It's always great when other teen writers are around. Wow, your writing is much deeper than mine. How old are you?

Anyway, I'm trying to get published. It seems very overwhelming at first and can be quite depressing with all the rejections. I decided to start out by querying agents. Since I'm poor, being a teenager and all, I found most of my research online, though that's not reccomended by most, and I've sent out tons of e-queries. At least 50. I have one full request out, and two partials. I've had other partial requests, but have been rejected. One had revision suggestions, and I actually rewrote the novel, making it much better, and now they're looking at the partial of the rewritten novel. Many times I've felt discouraged, but one author here was rejected 500 times before they got published!

Have you considered getting an agent? Some people never want an agent and some do. If you don't get an agent, you can always go to publishers that accept unsolicited submissions. I have a whole list of people I'm going to send to if this agent search fails.

A lot of this business seems to be about persistence. Of course, you need to have talent and a polished story, too!

Feel free to PM me sometime and we can talk about our writing endeavors.

My first thought as a writer and a parent of a teen writer is that someone in your position, who is determined to send materials out, might do well to look into querying agents first.

A good agent would certainly be better equiped to deal with publishers than you are (if you aren't 18 it's a whole legality issue with contracts, etc) and to know how to present (or conceal, I suppose) your age to your advantage.

So do your agent homework - you've got some great links here. Knock around the how to sections a while and follow the links to websites that can guide you through the process and avoid scams.
Check out agents that rep the kinds of things you like to write, and query on behalf of a your very best (finished, clean copy) work.

best of luck
annie jones (Sisterhood of the Queen Mamas - Dec 06)
awa Luanne Jones (Heathen Girls - out now)

Another teen writer over here!

Um... you just made me feel bad about my writing, happy? Sheesh.

Nah, just kidding. The advice here is excellent. Do check Uncle Jim's writing thread (I've found it better than those how to write books and it's free), and, well, get a life.

Seriously, getting a life gets you loads of great ides for stories and such. No, better than that. Get some really weird friends. No cliché punk/goth whatever friends. I mean really weird. Their weirdness will be your best source of inspiration (try Alan Yee, he's as weird as anyone can get ). Read the newspaper every day. Every section. There's a lot of good stuff going on in the world every day.

Read, read, read. I don't need to tell you to write, because you seem to do fine on that field Revise everything you've written. Then revise some more. And then revise. Another revision, then send it to a beta reader. More revision, revise some more. Send it out until you spend all your family's fortune on SASEs (kidding).

And don't forget to look after yourself

Keep at it.

That's what us teenagers do best - annoy people by perseverance!

Here's my advice: Write a short story around that line you mentioned in your first post, about books breeding in libraries. If you don't, I will.

(Sci-fi met up with Technical Manual and we bred Technopunk)

(and welcome to the AW looney-pot.)

If your novel is finished, put it aside and start writing short stories.

You wanna get published and the easiest way to do that is to be published.

Catch 22.

(Hey, that'd make a cool title for a book or something)

The extra added bonus to short stories is that there are lots of places to sell to (way more than legit publishers). Once you have some published shorts in magazines or anthologies your query letter suddenly looks a whole lot more appealing.

Crappy fact: Everyone wants to discover the next big author but no one wants to risk putting a chunk of money behind an unknown.

Get some credits and your letter will zing. Trust me on this. I know. I now land gigs without even showing samples, just my list of works gets me work.

The extra sweet bonus is that if you can tell a story in 3-5,000 words, your longer form writing will be so much better. Your prose will be tighter; you won't use words for the sake of it, but only use the ones you need; and you'll be a more disciplined writer to boot.

These pieces of advice are brought to you by those nice primates at writingmonkey.com, and come to you at the over-priced cost of two cents.

wordmonkey said:

You wanna get published and the easiest way to do that is to be published.

Catch 22.

(Hey, that'd make a cool title for a book or something)

Click to expand...

You're right, it would make a good book.

That nice Joseph boy sure thought so, anyway.

Geez, I'm 25 and all I have is a eight year old horrendous poems, bunch of fan fiction (every completed one a one or two shot), a handful of original (and mostly unfinished) short stories, a bunch of premises on scraps of paper, and one story from last year that only got about 70 pages in before I drifted away from it. I'm starting it up again though, and hoping I actually finish this time. I admire you for being so prolific. I hope you'll eventually come back to this thread. There's a lot of good advice here.