Fairies and YA
Nov. 15th, 2013 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anthimeriaForest War is stalled in the outline, because I realized there's a huge structual flaw in the middle (basically, an extended sequence in which the POV character is inactive, an observer rather than an actor), and I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.
I'm also debating whether it's worth it to fix, which is irritating, because I really enjoy this world. It's just--the more I write the outline, the clearer this story becomes to me, the more obvious it is to me that it's YA. But I can't actually imagine how one would sell a YA book where the characters are fairies--not the fae/sidhe/underhilll fairies of legend, but Fern Gully/Tinker Bell-esque hand-sized forest spirits with butterfly wings and nature magic and pretty colors. If it were a movie, we could rate it PG and move on. Since it's a novel, I'm becoming dubious about its saleability, because its target audience is 10-14, maybe even 12-16, for the character and writing and plot stuff, but--I'm not sure we could get a 14 year old to overlook the fact that the main characters are fairies.
So I'm still thinking about it. I would hate to abandon this project, but like Moxie, it might be something that'll have to wait until I have a few books with decent sales under my belt. It just might not be a good project for me right now, while I'm still unsold.
I've also been tinkering with other projects in their early stages, especially since working on The Novel's submission package for Strange Chemistry got me thinking about writing YA again. The Novel is still in a place where I'm happy with it, so no editing there, but I do have an urban fantasy YA trilogy I've been poking at. I haven't mentioned it much because it's been troublesome--I've rewritten the plot concept half a dozen times--but I think I finally got a solid concept for the first two books.
A bit ago I essentially tossed all the plotting I'd done for months out the window and rewrote the concept for book one, but couldn't get into book two. Today, after basically everything else went wrong, I sat down and hammered out a concept for book two, which is the only thing saving this day from total miserable uselessness.
Also tried to edit the mermaid pirates picture book, but it turns out exacting word choice is not something I'm capable of when miserable, but plotting urban fantasy YA is. Things you learn about yourself!
I'm also debating whether it's worth it to fix, which is irritating, because I really enjoy this world. It's just--the more I write the outline, the clearer this story becomes to me, the more obvious it is to me that it's YA. But I can't actually imagine how one would sell a YA book where the characters are fairies--not the fae/sidhe/underhilll fairies of legend, but Fern Gully/Tinker Bell-esque hand-sized forest spirits with butterfly wings and nature magic and pretty colors. If it were a movie, we could rate it PG and move on. Since it's a novel, I'm becoming dubious about its saleability, because its target audience is 10-14, maybe even 12-16, for the character and writing and plot stuff, but--I'm not sure we could get a 14 year old to overlook the fact that the main characters are fairies.
So I'm still thinking about it. I would hate to abandon this project, but like Moxie, it might be something that'll have to wait until I have a few books with decent sales under my belt. It just might not be a good project for me right now, while I'm still unsold.
I've also been tinkering with other projects in their early stages, especially since working on The Novel's submission package for Strange Chemistry got me thinking about writing YA again. The Novel is still in a place where I'm happy with it, so no editing there, but I do have an urban fantasy YA trilogy I've been poking at. I haven't mentioned it much because it's been troublesome--I've rewritten the plot concept half a dozen times--but I think I finally got a solid concept for the first two books.
A bit ago I essentially tossed all the plotting I'd done for months out the window and rewrote the concept for book one, but couldn't get into book two. Today, after basically everything else went wrong, I sat down and hammered out a concept for book two, which is the only thing saving this day from total miserable uselessness.
Also tried to edit the mermaid pirates picture book, but it turns out exacting word choice is not something I'm capable of when miserable, but plotting urban fantasy YA is. Things you learn about yourself!