Fruit Loops & Other Kid Colors

A few weeks ago I shared some tips on writing easy readers. How about another? When it comes to describing colors, paint a kid-friendly picture.

 

I've whipped up a color thesaurus that you might find helpful.

WHITE/OFF-WHITE

Milk, Yogurt, Cool Whip, Peeled Potato, Poodle, Ambulance, ghostly, vanilla, chalk

BLACK

Shadow, Pepper, Crow, Ink, Charcoal, Tire, Cola, Soot, Hearse, Raisin, Spider

YELLOW/GOLD

Sunshine, Squash, Big Bird, Egg Yolk, Candlelight, Banana, School Bus, Butterscotch, French Fries

BROWN/BEIGE

Cheerios, Mud, Chocolate, Coffee, Cinnamon, Mushroom, M&Ms, Acorn, Toast, Cork, Peanut, Pretzel

BLUE

Jeans, Peacock, Sky, Bruises, Mailbox, Ocean, Blueberry, Electricity, Cookie Monster, Bluebird

RED

Heart, Tomato, Lady bugs, Lobster, Fire Truck, Blood, Jell-O, Strawberry, Cherry, Candy Apple, Blood, Watermelon, SpaghettiOs, Santa, Stop Sign  

PINK

Bubblegum, Tongue, Pig, Cotton Candy, Shrimp, Flamingo, Ballerina  

ORANGE

Basketball, Carrot, Jack-O-Lantern, Orange Juice, Yam

GREEN

Olives, Mint, Cabbage, Grasshopper, Leaves, Money, Pea, Clover, Frog, Slime, Spinach, Lime

GRAY

Garbage Can, Rain Clouds, Elephant, Smoke, Ashes, Mouse, Fog, Grandma, Dolphin

PURPLE

Violet, Grape Kool-Aid, Bruises, Prune, Jelly,  

MULTICOLOR

Skiddles, Lifesavers, Fruit Loops, Crayons, Jelly Beans, Lollipops, Finger Paints

Let’s share. Do you have any colors to add?

Oh the Horror!

 

It’s no secret that I’m a horror-loving maniac. I grew up with the Universal Monsters. Stood in a mile-long line for The Exorcist. And Stephen King is my homeboy.

 

So again this year, I’m serving on the jury for the YA category of the Bram Stoker Awards. The proof is right here.

I love being on this committee. Especially now that horror has made a comeback in the YA world. 2011 was great. 2012 will be even better.

If you’re a YA author with a horror or dark paranormal coming out in 2012, contact me for info on how to get your book considered.

Name Game

After reading Paeony Lewis’s blog post last week on character names, it had me wondering...how did I come up with mine?

Naturally, I use family names.

Crosswire: Jesse Wade - Wade was my mother’s maiden name.

Hidden: Eugene - My grandfather and older brother’s name.

Fortune Tellers Club: Gena - I can’t count all the Genas in my family.

 There’s probably one family member in all of my books.

And I discovered something about myself while researching this post. I’m a J name maniac. My J characters: Juniper, Jake, Janene and Jesse.  

I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules to naming characters, but one important thing I learned from my stand up comedy days is hard consonants are funny. Buick instead of Chevy, for instance.

Think about it. What if Garfield was Gerald? Or Bart Simpson was Benny?

I also think hard consonants are playful and kid-friendly. My playful character names include Cocoa, Dandy (Daniel Dee), Buck and Buddy Bunion.

And I've noticed odd character names seem to stick. Ever wonder what those classic authors were thinking when they wrote characters named Scout, Holden, Gatsby and Rhett? There's probably a whole college course based on that.

Then there's the genre name game - naming your character to suit the genre. Which genres comes to mind with each of these?

Shane

Aurora

Pierce

Lilia

Lucien

(I'll reveal my answers in the comment section later. I want to hear yours first.)

 

So what about it, y'all? What led you to pick your characters' names?

Dotti: ARC Predator

A couple of weeks ago Vicki Sansum and I attended the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. I had a (successful!) signing, and since it was in Dallas, we drove up.

I love these conferences. They’re sort of like flea markets. I stroll the aisles, browsing and chatting with industry professionals. But first...I grabbed some complimentary totebags and race through the crowds, snatching up *ARCs.

If a book cover looks cool, in the bag it goes. But it only takes a couple of aisles before those totebags start feeling like body bags. And with no wheelies allowed, it’s a struggle. 

Me heaving ARCs

So now there's a need to be selective. “Hmmm,” I say to Vicki as I peruse the cover blurb. “This looks (cute, funny, intense) good.” In the tote it goes.

Luckily, conference organizers are brilliant. For a small fee, you can check your bags at the coat check. That frees you to amass more books.

So I drive home, transporting a trunkful of treasures.

Then the fun begins. I sort.

How did I manage to pick up so many adult titles? I rarely read adult lit.

Did I honestly think I’d read all these midgrades and YAs? Nope. Too busy hoarding to rationalize.

Since they’re all great books (whether they suit my taste or not), some get donated to the SCBWI HoustonConference for giveaways.

Those bags of ARCs have now dwindled to a small stack of TBR. And why bother posting this? To remind myself to behave when I attend TLA in April.  :) 

* Advanced Reader Copies, or as I refer to them, a glimpse into the future.

Spotlight on Flashlight

This is not an ad...it's a shout out.

I’ve published with a lot of great houses, each one offering a different experience. But one of those publishers stands out as unique. Flashlight Press – the smallest house I’ve worked with. In 2007 they published Grandpa for Sale, a collaborative work between my good friend, Vicki Sansum and myself. (Writing it together is another blog post for another day.)

Unique? If you’ve ever worked with Flashlight’s founder and editor, Shari Dash Greenspan, you’d understand. Shari saw more in our little PB than Vicki and I ever envisioned – word choices…plotting…illustrations. And it didn’t stop there. Because of her dedication “Grandpa” went on to win three awards, became a nominee of both the Arizona and Indiana State Reading lists, and was named a Borders Original Voices selection.

There were numerous reviews, interviews and articles connected to it. And it was even featured on the Dr. Laura show. That’s more accolades than all of my other books combined. (I wish I had someone like Shari behind those too!)

And “Grandpa” is not alone. All of Flashlight’s books have won numerous honors. Check out I Need MyMonster by Amanda Noll, illustrated by Howard McWilliam. 

 

There’s barely room on their webpage for all the kudos that fabulous PB has raked in…deservedly so. 

  

What’s Flashlight’s secret? Quality over quantity. Two to four books a year allows for a lot of nurturing. That’s something Shari and her crew do well.

If you’d like to submit to Flashlight, PLEASE read their guidelines first. And if you get an acceptance, you’ll have a whole lot to shout about.

  

Writing Easy Readers - Or How to Get 2nd Graders to Love You

Early reader chapter books – I’ve written more than a dozen. Thought I’d share a few writing tips on how I made mine successful.

Be specific.

What I want to convey: The main character, Tray, spots the same old stray cat messing up the flowerbed.

What I wrote: “Old Gray’s back,” Tray said, peering out at the scraggly gray cat squatting in the flowerbed.

See what I did? First off, I gave the cat a name. It tells the reader that the cat has been in the yard so many times that the family has nicknamed him. And I gave the cat an action. I have him “squatting” in the flowerbed. That word alone suggests what the cat is actually doing in the flowerbed.

Similes

We all use them. Kids love them. Similes are the perfect “showing” technique. They provide a gage that helps the reader visualize the object.

Here are a few of mine:

The cat stayed right in the middle of Mom’s prize roses, flinging dirt like a raging bull.

His head felt like a balloon losing air. I can’t pass out!

The dumpsters were lined up like train cars. 

Alliterations

These are just fun.

Two glassy green eyes peered out.

He soon transformed – flesh to fur – and ready to end this thing for good.

No way he’d ever potty in the petunias.

 

Sentence Structure

It’s important to mix it up and keep the tale far from the dreaded telling, telling, telling… Occasional sentence fragments are fine. And throw in a POV question here or there.

Be playful.

One technique I use is interrupting the sentence with a one or two word thought or sound.

Just when he thought he couldn’t draw another breath – pah! – he spit up a furball.

He licked his lips – Yum! – then set it down.

He jumped over the fence, rounded the corner and – CRACK! – butted heads with Mouser.

As usual, you’ll want to keep exclamation marks at a minimum. But with this age group, you’re allowed a few extra.

So there you have it. The next time you sit down to write a chapter book, I hope my examples are useful.

I Sumtimes Mak Errors

Proofreading…aaaahhh!

To proofread my own work, I usually have to set it aside for about a decade. Yep, I’m that blind to my own errors.

There are lots of proofreading methods, but this week I heard about a new one. Reading your manuscript in a different font.

Cool, right? And since I’ve made past errors on these posts, I thought I’d give it a shot.

The most common advice for proofing is to read your story out loud. I do this. And I’ve found that reading it as Christopher Walken works best.

Then there’s the method of removing yourself as author - putting your mind inside the reader. Okay, I rarely find typos, but dang that writer is good. I’m a huge fan.

I’ve also been told to read my book backward - last word first – Yoda-style. But if I’m putting myself inside the mind of my reader, it totally spoils the ending.

I’ve found the most effective method is uploading it to my Kindle. Reading it in book form raises my proofreading IQ. I can’t change the font type, but I can change the size. So I read it in large print while having dinner at 4:30.

                                                                                        

But now I’m wondering, should I proofread each manuscript in a font best suited for its genre?

Would this work for humor?

Thriller?

Literary?

Historical?

Horror?

Okay, whatever. I gave it a shot. If you find any typos here, remember, it’s not me...it’s the font.