SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2012: The Launch Party, or The Tale Of The Level Playing Field

by Jo Wyton and Maureen Lynas

Thursday evening saw the launch party of the third Undiscovered Voices anthology. In the anthology are twelve novel extracts (written by thirteen unpublished, unagented authors - including both myself and Maureen) and gorgeous illustrations by six very talented illustrators. Katie Dale has already blogged about the event here, and we don't want to get repetitive! So instead we'll focus on something else, something which came up in conversation a few times during the night.

It seems that one thing agents and editors want, what they really, really want is...

A level playing field.

Or at least they'd like, every now and then, for writers to act as though they're on one.

Because here's a secret (shh... don't tell anyone): agents and editors are people too. I know, shocking news.

The thing is, as writers we are used to sitting behind our laptops and sweating over every sentence, every word, until we don't think we get it any better. Then we send it out, and although we hope against hope for something positive, we inevitably expect to be rejected. If there is the merest sign of anything positive, we climb up to the nearest rooftop and dance a jig.

Now the UV launch party was great for a lot of reasons, but the main one for me was the intermingling of agent, editor and writer. There were no barriers in that room. If we wanted to approach people, we could. If people wanted to approach us, that was even better. So many surprises were had because of that breakdown of the neuroses which normally get the better of writers. Conversations were had that bore no relation to writing, or at least the anthology to hand, and more than that, they were enjoyed. This was a very different world than the one we are used to.

And here’s why. To a writer, the Industry Professional seems a mysterious creature. When we submit work, we think about what the person on the other end might say if they do like it, if they don't, and if they detest it with everything they have. Even if we know what the Professional looks like, we don't tend to think of them in that way when we know they have our work in their hands. We don't think of the person sitting at the other end of the e-mail, we only think about their reaction.

Will they like it, or won't they?

A number of times during the launch party, conversation turned to not only how intense the evening was for both writer and agent/editor, but to how much they were enjoying themselves. Partly, we imagine, this was due to the copious amounts of Prosecco that disappeared strangely fast. But it was also because agents and editors were surrounded by writers who weren’t afraid to talk to them.

Think about things from their point of view. Every month they receive hundreds of submissions. They know that with most of them, they either won't fall in love, or won't think that the book is ready to move on to the next stage. And yet they continue to fight through those slushpiles, because somewhere in there is the writer they would love to represent.

The reason we say 'love' is that for somebody to represent you, they have to LOVE your writing. Agents have to be able to walk in to a room and convince somebody to put money behind you and your book. Editors have to be able to face an acquisitions meeting and convince them all that your book is worth backing. You don't want somebody who likes your book, you want somebody who loves it.

And that's all agents and editors are looking for - writing they love. They want to find writers as badly as writers want to find them.

We wouldn't mind betting that when an agent or editor finds something they can get behind - something they LOVE - they look for the nearest jig-worthy rooftop as quickly as we do.

So next time you are at a conference or workshop, and you are avoiding eye contact with an agent or an editor in the desperate hope that they won't talk to you, go and say hello. You don't have to pitch (although don't tell anybody we said that). You really can just say hello. Act like there's a level playing field, and you never know, one might appear as if from nowhere.

Going back to your writing roots, with Celia Rees

I think it's fair to say that no list of top children's authors is complete without Celia Rees.

She is most widely known for her historical novels, including Witch Child, followed by Sorceress, Sovay and Pirates!, but her writing career began in contemporary teen thrillers. This year Celia has gone back to her roots with another contemporary thriller: This Is Not Forgiveness. Here Celia talks about writing This Is Not Forgiveness, and the process of going back to the future...

The question I’m asked most often is, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ And it’s a difficult one. Every book I write begins with an idea, but ideas can come from anywhere. All I can say for certain, is I know when one is there. You can’t dial up ideas and it doesn’t do to search too hard for them. Virginia Woolf once likened ideas to fish swimming in the great pool of the mind. Look too hard and nothing will break the surface. Turn too fast when you catch a glimpse of that great leaping fish, and it will disappear, leaving scarcely a ripple. You have to be subtle and you have to be quick.

Virginia Woolf

When I have an idea that could become a book, I feel a kind of thrilling excitement and I know to go with it. To dismiss that special feeling would be pure foolishness. To start on anything without it, would be like trying to breathe life into something that is already dead.

The idea for This Is Not Forgiveness came to me when I was watching Francois Truffaut’s film, Jules et Jim. What interested me was the triangular relationship between the two men, who are close friends, and this extraordinary girl, a real free spirit. They both fall in love with her, and I was thinking: You could update this. Make it now. I’d been writing historical novels. The book I was working on, The Fool’s Girl, was based on Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night. Shakespeare was one of the characters. So this new idea did not exactly fit my current profile but I knew that it would be my next novel and it would be contemporary.

Every Step You Take, Celia's first novel, and Fool's Girl, a historical novel - the style for which she is largely known

The story starting to tell itself in my head was happening now. That is when I got my second thrill of excitement. When I began writing, all those years ago in the early nineties, my first novel, Every Step You Take (now long out of print) was a contemporary thriller. I would be going back to my roots.

Could I still do it? Could I connect to modern teenagers? Could I mirror their world? Echo their voices? It was easy then. I was a teacher. My daughter was a teenager. But things had changed. I no longer teach. My daughter has grown up. Did that put me out of touch? Could I write something that would interest and engage teen readers, keep them turning the pages? It was a challenge but one I would have to take up. Once an idea is there, it is impossible to un-think. Once it is in my head, it has to be done.

I often have the first chapter a long time before I start writing, so I didn’t find that hard to do. I began to write in the voice of the main narrator, Jamie, who is seventeen. I was writing in the First Person, Present Tense. I’d written in the FP before, but not Present Tense. It took a bit of getting used to, but felt right for the book. My first idea was that the book would be written entirely from Jamie’s point of view.

Then came a piece of writer serendipity by the way of an Arvon Course with Patrick Ness. I was there as Patrick’s co-tutor, but the Arvon magic can work for us as well. We sat in on each other’s sessions and took part in the workshops. Anyone who knows Patrick’s work, knows that he is passionate about voice. He is also a daring and innovative writer. He made me think that I could write in other voices, too. So I made Jamie one of three narrators, joined by the other male character, Rob, his older brother who is a soldier, and the charismatic, enigmatic Caro.

Arvon + Patrick Ness = a golden equation even for the practised amongst us

Once I decided this, the book really came alive. I didn’t have any problem with the voices at all. It was almost like taking dictation. I wrote the book very quickly. Far faster than my historical fiction because I didn’t have to keep stopping. I enjoyed being able to write without the constraints of period life and language and writing in different voices was exhilarating.

The resulting novel is very different from that first book but I’m glad I decided to go back to my roots. The book is finished now and published. Did I succeed in meeting the challenge? Only time and the reader can tell.

Slushpile note: I was lucky enough to receive an early copy of This Is Not Forgiveness, and am happy to attest to its brilliance! It's a book that stays with you long after you've finished reading it. Jo

Beverley Birch - Blog View from my Desk January 2012

Beverley Birch is friend and mentor to many slushpilers and published authors alike. Beverley is a senior commissioning editor for Hachette Children's Books and three times nominated Brandford Boase editor. She is a writer of more than 40 books including novels, picture books, biographies and retellings of classic works. Her novel, 'Rift' came out in 2006 and you know you are in the hands of a true storyteller when you read the very first page.

I’m often asked what I think of the ‘state of publishing’. It all depends on whose prism I’m peering through. More than ever publishing seems divided into the pessimistic and the optimistic - gloom and a mourning of lost times on the one hand, promise and widening opportunity – e-technology and the ease of linking with readers through social media – on the other.

The view from my desk is coloured by the fact that the editorial and commissioning landscape is by its nature long-term – the book I acquire now will reach its readers in a year or more. The first-time writer I begin to support now will reach their writing maturity after several books – and not necessarily in one judged commercially successful, though it may be wonderful for a reader. 

Other sectors of publishing – sales including international rights sales, marketing, publicity, are dealing with the finished object and its immediate reception in bookshops, libraries and partner publishers, by reviewers and readers. It’s a capricious landscape seamed with successes and failures of the moment.

publishing - a tricky path to navigate

 By contrast a commissioning editor has to have a steady nerve and a long view. If I think something is good, just because it doesn’t break through commercially or doesn’t get picked up for prizes, the book hasn’t changed. It’s still the book I believed in – the writer is still the writer I thought worth backing. You keep hold of the qualities you admire, navigate the shifting currents of commercial success and failure while staying true to your own conception of a good book. Not easy in the current climate, and all too easy to veer into the pessimistic camp ...

talking of lost tales...

So, firstly, the bleak bit:

And that’s about how incredibly difficult it is, and getting worse, to get a book – however good, however much everyone believes in it – through to its readers. A whole host of hurdles are in the way – conditioned not by the content or quality of the book, but by the economic models and sales targets of publishing and bookselling of today. It has of course always been like that, but the goalposts for any one individual book have moved. Manuscripts at acquisition are judged by whether they are likely to ‘pay for themselves ‘- achieve individual sales targets that justify publishing them, and then by whether they have – in those terms – succeeded or not. There is little room for the book predicted to have modest sales, but which simply deserves to be published because it is so good – and fighting for that kind of book can be dispiriting.

There’s nothing new in the fact that a story requiring sustained commitment from a young reader, yet rewarding and enriching if the reader sticks with it – will not sell as many as one that offers instant gratification and can be swiftly enjoyed by the less committed youngster. 

Does that mean that the first book should not be published? Sadly, the answer is that these days it usually won’t be – because it won’t (defined by target sales) ‘work’ for the publisher. Yet authors (and editors) who have contact with youngsters in reading groups at school and library know that readers of book A exist: they’re borrowers not necessarily buyers – an impossible conundrum for publishers facing a library and school sector turning away from investment in books. Yet the readers are there and, if given access to forums or to authors, will discuss books enthusiastically and intelligently, reflecting their hunger for them.

Long gone are the days when the sure-fire commercial big-hitters supported the commissioning of books we just loved and felt should be made available to young readers, but which would always net a smaller readership.

The questions now are: will the book/author be promoted by the major high street booksellers, by supermarkets, is the ‘the hook’ good enough? Windows of opportunity flung open initially in the high street get slammed shut in the blink of an eye if a book doesn’t achieve early recognition – no time for its readership to grow. Survival of books (publication, then maintenance in print) is skewed by raw sales results.

sales results don't tell the whole story

Though ebooks is changing that, allowing books to remain available well beyond a print life – that is part of the optimistic view. Add affordable Print-on-demand, into the mix – and it’s the best of both worlds.

And what about the chance for authors to reach out to their readership unhindered by their relative importance or unimportance in their publishers marketing and publicity priorities – the freedoms social networks offer to authors large and small in profile. It’s an inevitable fact that publishers can only focus on publication – and then they move on to the books in the next publication round. In very real ways, the author can support now through the entire life of a book – and keep it alive, keep readers interested in it. That’s most definitely good ….

Juliet Clare Bell with a happy audience for 'Don't Panic, Annika!'

And children are reading, are reflecting their interest in story and story-making (ShoutAbout! online creative writing magazine very recently launched by CWISL – Children’s Writers and Illustrators in South London, has had a steady building of young visitors to the site and submission of new work by them.) And that’s one initiative among many providing evidence that kids are interested in story, in creativity, in story-making – a powerful route to literacy, and reading.

And there are some brilliant books being published, from fine established writers and debut authors alike. When you take the long view – and to borrow from Julia Eccleshare when she introduced the Branford Boase Award in 2011 – if that shortlist was anything to go by, writing and publishing for children is actually in very good shape. And that reflects that everywhere there are writers writing and editors supporting books they love, regardless of how hard it is. We don’t give up, do we? 

So in the end, I suppose I’ve stepped decisively into the optimist’s camp …