CWHV June 2024 Conference

Our June 8, 2024 CWHV Conference was a wonderful success. Our keynote speaker was Susanna Leonard Hill, who delivered an inspiring speech on persistence. She also enlightened us on where she gets her ideas, how to find new ideas, how to dig into your own past and discovering feelings and fears for emotional truth.

Alexandra Penfold, an agent at Upstart Crow Literary, explained in detail the picture book editing process and what questions one should ask when editing, and how to develop an emotional connection between the reader and the character. She also shared mentor texts with their illustrations. Attendees worked on their pitch as their hands-on exercise.

Mekisha Telfer, an editor at Roaring Brook Press, discussed the voice of your characters and how voice can set the mood, used multiply published works to demonstrate how voice can define your characters and setting, and reviewed the different stylistic tools of writing. The hands-on writing exercises focused on the voice of your characters in your novel.

Alison Weiss, an independent consultant, talked about the lows and highs of publishing, the disappointments and the joys. She discussed marketing ideas and strategy, how publishers get their sales numbers, explained the profit and loss process and what to do if your publisher closes or your editor leaves.

Everyone enjoyed a delicious Panera lunch while chatting with fellow writers or the faculty.

Many thanks to our hard working attendees, without you our conference wouldn’t exist. Also, a big thank you to our faculty Susanna Leonard Hill, Alexandra Penfold, Mekisha Telfer and Alison Weiss.

A final thank you goes to our dedicated staff Catherine Ciocchi, Della Ferreri, Tania Guarino, Valerie Marchini and Karen Orloff.

Pictures from our June 2024 conference

Did you Write a Picture Book or a Short Story?

After rough drafting your picture book manuscript and revising it several times, you anxiously share it with your critique group. You hear suggestions and comments, some of which you agree with, some not, but the devastating opinion is when you hear, it’s more of a short story and you should consider magazines. AAAAH!

As writers, we need to accept criticism of our work. Okay, we can do that. But when is a story more suited for a magazine than a picture book (ages 5 to 9)?

Both traditional picture books (not mood books) and short stories have main characters who should solve their own problem and both picture books and short stories should have a take-away from the story. The basic differences between short stories and picture books are explained below.

Short stories have more descriptions of your characters and setting because there are only a few art spots, word counts will vary for each magazine (400 to 800 for Highlights for Children), the read-a-loud quality and multiple readings are not as important and you don’t have to worry about scene changes or page turns.

In a picture book, there is little description of the characters and the setting because we leave room for the illustrator, the word count is short, usually 500 or less (different publishers have different guidelines), the take- away should not be pedantic or preachy, the language should be amusing with a read-a-loud quality to encourage multiple readings, enough different scenes to support a 32-page format and a text to encourage page turns.

The differences are few, but important. 

A personal favorite of mine is Go Sleep in Your Own Bed by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Lori Nichols. When the pig goes to bed and finds a cow in his sty, it sets off a chain reaction of all the animals moving to their own bed.

The language is entertaining with onomatopoeia, fun verbs like “straggled, peckety-droop” and pleasing expressions like “Oh, fluff and feathers.”

Page turns are encouraged by each animal going to bed and finding a partially hidden animal already bedded down. “Who do you think he found?” The reader must turn the page to expose the animal. The repeating refrain of “Get up! . . .Go sleep in your own bed!” is read by the reader.

This book is an outstanding example of a lively, read-a-loud language and a text that encourages page turns.

Character Study: List of Grievances

Families and parents aren’t perfect, but you can use that information to strengthen your characters and make them more three dimensional. Write what you know.

Below is your character’s list of grievances.

Growing up in your family, what did you hate as a kid /teenager? Like?

What was a special memory of your childhood? A painful memory?

What made you angry?

Were you the favorite child?

Did you feel you were ignored by your parent(s)?

Who was your favorite parent and why?

Were your parent(s) unfair? In what way?

Did one parent spend more time with you or your sibling? How did that make you feel?

Did you have to help with chores or babysitting while your sibling could come and go with few restrictions?

Did you like your sibling(s)? If not, why?

Were you jealous of a sibling? Why?

Was a sibling jealous of you? Why?

Was your family the one who always had your friends over for dinner or sleepovers? If not, why?

My list may be depressing or even upsetting as you recall painful memories of your childhood, but the goal is to make you think about your characters, give them depth, give them a family problem or an emotional problem. What’s their backstory? Why do your characters do what they do?

Learn How to Stop Procrastinating

While trying to come up with an idea for this month's blog post, I was stumped. Roots dug deep into nothing. No fertile soil, only clay. I thought something exciting or noteworthy must have happened to me within the last few weeks that I could turn into a blog post. 

I spent time working on my novel in progress, but that's not different or interesting. I spent time with family and friends, shared meals with them and received unexpected compliments, but those events were not blog worthy, either.

Then I thought about all the stuff that I was ignoring. Cleaning, yard work, submitting pb manuscripts, updating pictures on our conference website, getting Christmas photos printed (to be framed and displayed), cleaning out my emails and texts just to name a few of the things that should get done. But I did not want to do any of those things. So I did what any writer would do, I picked up a book and headed for the couch.

 

That's when the idea came to me. My post should be about procrastinating. Why am I procrastinating? 

The article below explains why we procrastinate and ways to to stop procrastinating written by Dr. Itamar Shatz

 

Why People Procrastinate: The Psychology and Causes of Procrastination

What are you putting off for another day?

 

Remember Your Character's Love Language

Whether your relationship is a friendship or a long term commitment, identifying your partner’s love language will galvanize those bonds. In your writing, it will make your characters more 3 dimensional, more relatable.

Besides identifying your character's wants and needs, their goals and obstacles and their hates and loves, remember to think about their love language.

Affirmation. Simply stated, this is giving recognition. It may seem silly to thank an adult for picking up his own socks or putting his own dish in the dishwasher, but giving praise or recognition says his actions are appreciated.

Service. What have you done for me lately? Talk is cheap. If this is your character’s love language, they don’t want thank yous; they want deeds. Helping to bring in the groceries or fold the laundry means more to them than saying you love them. Show them.

Gifts. If this is their love language, they want to receive gifts, cards, flowers. Giving them something tangible says to them you care about them and you love them.

Quality time. Spend time with your significant other, but that doesn’t mean being in the same room, but doing different things. It means actively listening, eye contact and giving them your undivided attention. Put down the phone or remote and really listen to them. Hear what they are saying.

Physical touch. Touch can be anything from hand holding to more intimacy. Physical toughing is therapeutic. It lowers our blood pressure, reduces our stress hormones and releases dopamine and serotonin (the feel good hormones) and oxytocin (the bonding hormones). Physical touching tells our partners they are important and fosters feeling of safety and security.

What is your character’s love language?

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/communication-and-conflict/learn-to-speak-your-spouses-love-language/understanding-the-five-love-languages

Hook the Reader With Your First Line

The hardest part of writing a novel, or any piece of writing, may be the opening line. The first line must catch the editor's or the agent's attention. Once a book is published, it must compete with every other book in the store.

Who hasn't stood in front of a bookshelf, selected a book in a non-scientific manner (based on its title, jacket cover or even color), perused the back cover or the first few lines of the first page and rejected it?  For whatever reason, the book didn't resonate with you or pique your interest enough to make you parade to the register with said book in hand.

 

As writers, we’ve all stared at the blank page. Sometimes becoming painfully paralyzed by the importance of the first line, we developed writer’s block. A debilitating illness affecting writers by rendering them unable to construct sentences. (Throws salt over shoulder)

 

Let me ease your suffering. The rescue medicine is Seven Ways to Create a Killer Opening  by writer and Writer's Digest contributor Jacob M. Appel. He lists seven different ways to start your story or novel. Using one of his techniques might help your manuscript get out of the slush pile and into the hands of an editor or agent. And ultimately, one of the envied positions on a bookshelf near you. Good luck!

 

CWHV November 2023 First Pages

We were thrilled to have Sean McCarthy, agent and owner of the Sean McCarthy Literary Agency: Meredith Mundy, Editorial Director of Abrams Appleseed and the Abrams Preschool Program; and Beth Terrill, Editor, NorthSouth Books give their professional advice on our CWHV First Pages Conference.

Comments ranged from nice alliteration, liked the use of onomatopoeia, too many shifts in perspective, voice feels didactic and many comments on rhyme and character. There were also comments about conflict, narrative action, transitions, wrong format for age and /or subject, concept and 100 more opinions.

We broke for a delicious Panera lunch.

After the First Pages were concluded, Sean ran a workshop on pacing. Below are the topics: Pacing, Meet the Characters, Anticipation and Escalation of Conflict, Character Driven Action, Crisis and Resolution, Lasting Memory and Transformation. Sean discussed all of these in more detail.

We closed out the afternoon with a Faculty Q &A with Sean, Meredith, and Beth.

We want to thank our attendees for their continued support of the Children’s Writers of the Hudson Valley and for our faculty, Sean McCarthy, Meredith Mundy, and Beth Terrill for spending the day teaching us how to make our first page stronger, clearer and more inviting. Last but no least, we want to thank our hard working committee members for another successful conference.

For photos, click conference pics and scroll down to November 2023.