Right up front, let me say my MS is not riddled with profanity. It’s also not squeaky clean, which leads me to the following story.

When a relative found out I was writing a YA novel, she suggested her 15-year-old son read it. This is a fantastic idea. I put some of my nieces and nephews to work as beta readers with my first version of the novel. The more input from young readers, the better. Nevertheless, I thought that as the parent she should know that the novel contains the F-word.

I wasn’t present for the conversation, but this news caused some apparent disappointment for some family members. It then led to a discussion of how people who resort to such language lack an adequate vocabulary.

So true! Yet it’s not as if I lack the vocabulary to write without using the F-word. But what if my YA character does? What if he doesn’t know how to express his strong emotions any other way?

Can a writer accurately portray high schoolers, in this case a high school boy with a rough background, without using some swearing? Out of curiosity, I did a search for the F-word in my novel and found it seven times in a 70,000 word MS. So it’s not out of control or anything. Many places where I could have used it I instead wrote that this particular character was swearing or cursing without using the actual swear words. And sometimes, the characters using the word are the ones who make this kid’s life so difficult. It helps illustrate the type of people who have shaped who he is.

 But my family’s response also raises other questions. How much does this particular word limit the market for a YA novel? I wouldn’t object to eliminating it altogether—it could be replaced with screwed, friggin’, freakin’, etc.—although I think this particular character would use the real F-word, and probably should use it far more than he does now, not less.

 Too bad I’m not writing sci-fi or high fantasy. Then I could do like they do on Battlestar Galactica and make up a word like frack and everything would be cool.

I want to thank Central Ohio SCBWI and YA author Linda Gerber for a great presentation Wednesday evening. It was only my second COSCBWI meeting, but I’m glad I finally found a local meeting of writers—if a fifty mile drive can be considered local!

Linda Gerber, author of Death by Bikini, presented her top ten tips for writing for teens and tweens. I will summarize her tips, but not word for word because you should go see her if you get a chance. She’s an engaging presenter.

1. Read Middle Grade and YA books. If you don’t love the genre, you shouldn’t write it. Reading it will also help you see what’s on the market and what kids love to read.
2. Know the genre. The division between middle grade and YA can get blurry, but the key seems to be the perspective of the protagonist. In middle grade, the protagonist is more self-centered, but in YA, he or she will consider how actions affect the bigger picture.
3. Understand your audience. What drives kids? How do they see things? Kids can see through fake, and they like to take risks. So don’t be careful with your books, because kids like to read about other kids breaking the rules.
4. Make it fresh. Take an old idea and make it new (think sparkly vampires).
5. Keep up with what’s going on in kids’ world, but don’t try to be too trendy. Remember it takes a couple years to get a book published and on the shelf, and technology changes fast.
6. Get the voice right. Never sound like an adult telling a story or an adult trying to sound like a kid. Never try to use the current lingo, but you can make up your own lingo if you want.
7. Empower your teen characters. Let your characters take care of their own problems (kill off the parents, even if just figuratively!). A character who takes the initiative and must deal with the consequences is an interesting character, not someone who is passive.
8. Keep it tight. You should have a hook in your first paragraph, bottom of the first page, end of page 3, and end of chapter 3. These are the typical lengths you get to submit to agents and editors, and you want them to want to keep reading.
9. Don’t preach. Don’t set out in a book for kids to teach a lesson. Kids will spot it and hate you.
10. Accept criticism. Find teenage readers and tell them to be brutally honest. Better yet, watch them read and see where they lose interest.

I look forward to reading some of Gerber’s novels, especially Death by Bikini, which started out as a vampire novel and ended up a mystery without any supernatural elements! I wonder what I would do if an editor told me to cut out the fantasy element in my novel.

By the way, if anyone out there is feeling down over a recent rejection, read these great quotes at Kate Monahan’s MFA Confidential blog.

Some writers get their big break with writing contests, so I’d like to pass along a couple YA contests I’ve heard about. Nothing like increasing my competition, right?

If you can have the first 250 words and a title for your novel ready by the end of November, you can enter the Young Adult Novel Discovery Contest. The prizes include one-on-one pitch sessions with an agent, consultations with editors, and free books and classes.

For those of you writing contemporary YA, check out the Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel. The prize is a book contract! The deadline is December 31. There’s a lot of fine print on this one, so be sure to read the rules carefully before submitting. I find it somewhat discouraging that they don’t even find a novel they consider worthy every year, but it’s worth a shot.

Know of any other YA writing contests or any writing contests at all? Feel free to post them in the comments.

Book Review: Flip Dictionary by Barbara Ann Kipfer, Ph.D. © 2000

I came across this reference at a writing conference and it caught my eye. Calling it a “flip dictionary” made it sound fun and quick to use, and the text on the cover stated that this book is “for when you know what you want to say but can’t think of the word.” That sounded just like me. I have that on-the-tip-of-my-tongue experience frequently (and before you suggest I’m developing a mental disorder or something, let me just say that I’ve always been this way). I know there is a precise word for what I’m trying to say, but I just can’t dig it out of my brain.

For that reason, I bought Flip Dictionary in the hopes that it would help me excavate the words from my head.

And browsing through the book, I come across all kinds of fascinating and unusual words. I can understand how Barbara Ann Kipfer organized the words, and in many ways the book is far more user-friendly than your average dictionary or thesaurus. Let’s say you know there is a special name for a nose doctor, so you look up “doctor” and go down the list of doctor-related terms until you find “ear, nose and throat doctor” and there it is: “otolaryngologist.” A pretty technical term that might be hard to find otherwise. Maybe you can only think of a phrase, like you wanted to say someone “messed up,” but you didn’t want to say it that way. You can look up phrases and find synonyms (in this case, blunder, botch, bungle, confuse, dirty, disorganize, err, goof, muff).

Unfortunately for me, though, my attempts to access the words I know exist but I can’t think of have been pretty unsuccessful. I don’t often need to come up with technical terms, although just now I thought there is probably a word for the text on the cover of a book. If there is, it’s not in Flip Dictionary under “text,” “cover,” “book,” or “words.” (Unless I’m simply looking for the word “blurb.” What do you think? It’s not a review, just a description of the book. If you know a word for this, please leave me a comment so I can stop thinking about it! By the way, I learned in my search that a book of articles serving as a tribute or memorial is a “festschrift.” Not that I have much occasion to use such a word, but isn’t it fun to know?) Yesterday I was trying to come up with the word “noncompliant.” I looked up “rebellious” and “defiant” and couldn’t find it (It finally popped into my head in church this morning). And yet now that I look up “noncompliant,” I find that Flip Dictionary references “rebellious.” Shouldn’t it work in both directions?

I suppose maybe my mind processes words differently than Kipfer, and that’s why Flip Dictionary has proven less helpful than the average thesaurus for me. I’ll keep it on my shelf, but I’ll grab my thesaurus first. Besides, it is an interesting book, so if you simply enjoy books about words, find yourself a copy and take a look.

I knew we were in trouble.

It started the summer before last when I was vacationing in Rhode Island. The day before we left for the trip, Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn came out. I bought a copy and took it with me.

I remember it so clearly, reading on the couch in the rental house when my four-year-old daughter sits down next to me and looks over my shoulder.

“I’m reading your book,” she says with an impish grin.

What? Is it possible? A four-year-old reading a YA novel? Oh, yeah. It’s possible. Not that she understands every word, but enough to be worrisome.

“No,” I told her, closing the book. “Don’t try to read it. It’s too scary. There are mean and scary people in this book. You won’t like it.”

So then it’s a game. I open the book, she peeks at it. “I’m reading it again!” she says. Finally I’m able to distract her with something else, or maybe I give up and put the book away. All I remember is I don’t want my preschooler reading about vampire sex.

My daughter is five now, so her reading skills are a year better. She was recently tested at school and is reading at a fourth grade level. I’m surprised it’s not higher. She’s a superior reader to many students I used to teach in high school.

But I still don’t want her reading YA. I’m writing my own book now and will sit at my laptop in the dining room. She’ll stand behind me and ask questions about the words on the screen. It has violence and profanity—nothing major, but not something I want to explain to my little girl. I close the laptop and tell her she can read it when she’s older, but as I said before, it’s a fun game for her. She gets my attention that way.

I know of people who read Harry Potter to their three-year-olds. I’m not one of those people. That’s some scary stuff for the preschool crowd. And typically my daughter doesn’t seek out anything that she isn’t one hundred percent comfortable with. She tends to read nonfiction—books about science, planets, and especially animals. But if she decides she doesn’t mind reading something where the people aren’t all perfectly nice to each other, boy, are we in trouble!