Okay, I think I'm ready, but after that build up you may feel this a let down.
Greetings Danni
, hello and hi and welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of the Absolute Write Watercooler
It can be a long and hard process to write a novel and an even longer one in trying to get an agent and then get the novel sold to a publisher. This site can be a great resource to help you develop your fantasy novel, edit it and prepare it for querying agents and publishers. I know this from first hand experience as it has helped me with mine (yes I have just finished writing my very own fantasy novel for kids).
If you would like some feedback on your novel you can try posting some of your work in the
Share Your Work forum (the password is vista). You'll find some of the advice there invaluable. The critters don't all bite, but it would help if you brought them some cookies
. There's a section there for fantasy and also for queries, which can be of extra help once you have finished your novel and are preparing it to send to agents.
Two other forums you may find of particular help are in our Writing Studios Section and these are the
'Young Adult' forum and the '
Childrens Forum'. In either one of these forums you can post a thread asking about Upper Middle Grade and whether you should include this term in your query.
I'm not an expert on that, but there are many people in the Childrens and Young Adult Forums that could help sorting out what you can include in your query letter. If I were to be pushed for an answer on that, then I would say that it probably wouldn't really matter much, saying it is for Middle Grade or Young Adult would probably suffice. Or even just saying the target audience ages (12 years). But again, start a thread in the childrens section and ask away.
The word count for middle grade books can vary widely and can go all the way up to 80,000 words and sometimes beyond. Fantasy books tend to usually have a slightly higher word count than regular books. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book for example had a word count around the 80,000, I think. Again you can ask this question the Childrens writing forum and you'd get a better idea and a much better answer I'd imagine
. You could also try asking our Guest Agent in the '
Ask the Agent' forum, Jennifer Laughran. She's an agent that specialises in the children and young adult market. The thread is
here.
When it comes to looking for agents for your novel then I'd recommend two sites that you may find useful these are
www.querytracker.net and
www.agentquery.com. We also have an '
Ask the Agent' forum with resident and guest agents answering all your questions.
And as for the voices in your head, I can't help you with them. I have too many of my own voices fighting for my time
. If there are more stories with your characters, then write more stories. This may silence them for a short time.
Oh and before I forget, don't forget to check out the Newbie Question of the Day thread (the link is below in the sig line).
