When considering the many paths I could follow--since
I write in many genres—for
National Novel Writing Month, I thought about
picking up the middle grade biographies I have started and bringing several of
them to life. I’ve shared a number of the women I admire on this blog.
Of course, the
50,000 word goal in a month necessitates that the Month of Writing Madly would
have to include several of the tales in order to meet the goal. Middle grade
biographies are more in the realm of 80-100 pages.
Biographies
are classed as informational books, not novels. Because of white space for charts
and pictures and lists, 80-100 pages is far fewer than the 20,000-25,000 words that the number of pages would
suggest for a novel format. I would have to writie three or four of them in the
month.
But that’s not
a problem since no one monitors if you stick to one story. Just keep writing is
the mantra.
It’s also not
a problem that the biography genre is not a novel. National NOVEL Writing Month
doesn’t really care about that, either. Get to 50,000 words in 30 days. Just
keep writing.
My problem is
more essential, and the real reason I am choosing not to work on the
biographies I am so excited about.
I can’t seem
to write engagingly for middle graders, say my very smart and valued critique
group members. They told me, and you know that feeling you have in crit group?
That feeling that says, “This isn’t right, but maybe they won’t notice.” Yeah,
well, good luck with that feeling in a great crit group! Oh, they called me on
it, and I knew they were right.
The
information was solid, the support pieces were appropriate, and the little-known
characters were interesting folk. But my writing, to use the vernacular,
sucked.
I don’t know
how to fix that right now. And I can’t spend a month writing really bad books.
So what’s an author to do?
I am a problem
solver and an information junkie. I need to know more. I’m reading a lot of
middle grade bios and noting the pacing, the vocabulary, the density of information,
and other features of successful middle grade bios. I am reading books on
writing for children and books on writing biographies. I’m sort of doing my own
class on writing craft.
Will this approach
work? <shrug> Beats me. But it’s all I know to do right now. If I find an
online class to take, I’ll hop on that, too. For right now, the information is
sparse.
There are lots
of books on writing for children. Novels, picture books. There are books on
writing informational text for children. There is nothing I have found so far
that focuses on writing biographies for children. It’s very frustrating.
Hmm. If I ever
figure this out, that might be a book I could write for others struggling as I
am. What do you think?
