Elana Johnson Guest Post & Giveaway: Surrender Blog Tour

We are very excited to part of the pre-release blog tour for SURRENDER by Elana Jonson!  This is the companion book to Possession, Elana 2011 Debut.  We hope you enjoy Elana's guest post and be sure to enter to win an ARC of SURRENDER!

SURRENDER, A Companion Novel to POSSESSION
A guest post by Elana Johnson

Okay, so today we’re going to talk a bit about companions and how they differ from true sequels.

First, some inside information: I wrote POSSESSION as a standalone novel, and when the thought of writing another novel in the series came up, I knew it couldn’t be a sequel.

Sequels are generally narrated by the same character as the first book, and that just wasn’t going to happen in SURRENDER.

So it needed to be a companion. In my head, the main difference between sequels and companions is the narrating character. Violet Schoenfeld narrates POSSESSION and she lives under the control of the Association of Directors.

Well, in SURRENDER, there are two narrating characters, different from Vi. This is one main distinction between a sequel and a companion. Gunner Jameson and Raine Hightower co-narrate the book, and they still live under the control of the Association of Directors.

So, usually, a companion novel is still set in the same story world, but the plot doesn’t necessarily carry over, nor does it have to begin immediately following the first novel.

In SURRENDER, the story picks up in the city of Freedom, which is where Vi and Jag don’t want to go in POSSESSION. It’s the capital of the Association, and it’s where Gunner and Raine live. The story begins about eight months after POSSESSION ends.

I will say that readers will get to see some of their favorite characters from POSSESSION in the companion of SURRENDER. Vi is there; so is Zenn. And maybe you’ll even get to see Jag…

So companions are similar, yet different. If you have read THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH (by Carrie Ryan) series, you have read companion novels in THE DEAD TOSSED WAVES and THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES. And you can think of EXTRAS by Scott Westerfeld as a companion to the first three UGLIES books.

I wrote SURRENDER as a companion, because Vi’s story had ended, and she wasn’t available to narrate another book. Coming up with who had a story to tell, and who was talking loud enough in my head, took a long time. I tried several different things, and none of them seemed to work.

So finally, I scrapped everything, and started as if I was writing a whole new book. Finally, that’s what worked. I didn’t tie myself down to using anything from POSSESSION, and that freed me from the stumbling blocks I’d been experiencing.

Thus, Gunner and Raine were born… And they have a story to tell in SURRENDER.

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

So this week, as part of the pre-release tour of awesome, you have the chance to win an ARC of SURRENDER before it releases on June 5. And not just one chance. SEVEN CHANCES.

That’s right! There are SEVEN (7!) ARCs available to win this week. Here’s what you can do to win one.

1. Comment on each of the pre-release blog posts this week. (1 entry for each comment)
   Click here for full details and schedule.
2. Purchase the POSSESSION paperback (10 entries – no purchase necessary to enter) 
3. Purchase REGRET (5 entries – no purchase necessary to enter) 
4. Put the SURRENDER blog tour badge on your blog (3 entries) 
5. Please fill out the Rafflecopter entry widget with what you’ve done. 
6. This contest ends at midnight on Friday, May 18, is open in the US and Canada, and winners will be notified over the weekend. Good luck! 

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Kimberly Derting is Dauntless! #TeamDauntless #DivergentNation

Kimberly Derting, author of the Body Finder series & The Pledge, talks about why she's Dauntless!

Dauntless? Who, me???

For those of you who know, or have even met me, I might not strike you as the “Dauntless” sort. That’s probably because I’m not overly pierced, tattooed, insanely badass, or particularly skilled with weaponry. I can’t even throw a punch...although I have been told I’m pretty decent with the bow staff (not!)

But let’s be clear, that doesn’t mean I’m not tough, because...let’s face it, tough is relative. Tough is a state of mind. (Okay tough can be physical too, but I’m talking about a different kind of tough here.)

I grew up in a fairly rough neighborhood...the kind where people didn’t stroll around after dark, or say, leave a nice car (or any car) unlocked. A lot of the kids I grew up with, me included, were pretty much expected to stay in that very same neighborhood...or one just like it. There was very little initiative to “get out” so to speak. Most of the parents didn’t have jobs, probably hadn’t graduated high school, and didn’t do the things necessary to help give their kids a chance at a better life, ones that included college or even a skilled trade, for that matter.

And I almost fell into that same pattern when I dropped out of high school during my senior year. But the thing is, I knew right away that wasn’t who I wanted to be. So I kicked my own ass and decided to enroll in the local community college to finish up the classes I needed. And then I started working. Hard. I went back to college and I set goals for myself. Sometimes I met them and sometimes I didn’t, but I never stopped trying toward something more. And I never looked back at the kind of life I’d had growing up in project housing, but I also will NEVER, forget where I came from.

It’s hard to break molds, to become something other—more—than what’s expected of you. But if you want it bad enough...and if you’re Dauntless, you can do it!

Have you missed any of our Divergent Nation Posts? Click HERE to catch up and learn how you can enter to win an a NOOK by supporting Team Dauntless. Be sure to check out http://bit.ly/dauntlessfaction for all the latest Dauntless News and http://bit.ly/choose_dauntless to learn more about Insurgent! And contact Anderson's to pre-order your signed copy of INSURGENT out May 1st and help FREE FOUR!

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We're giving away a copy of The Last Echo by Kimberly Derting!

• This giveaway is open internationally (bookdepository.com must ship to your county)  - and if you're in the US and would prefer an ebook that is also an option. 
• All of our other standard rules apply
• Giveaway ends 4/26
• CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Jessica Shirvington author of Embrace Guest Post

The boy she loves will betray her.
Her enemy will save her.
Violet will have to make a choice that could cost not only her life, but her eternity...

Embrace has been one of my favorite reads this year - I wished I could have nominated it for stuff like BIR2011 and the Heroine Tournament.  Earlier this year Sourcebooks asked a few blogs their thoughts on a foreign book they purchased and were publishing. We are extremely honored to be one of the blogs asked - and seriously y'all we LOVED the book.

We loved it so much, I contacted my daughter's pen pal's mom in Australia to see if she would ship me the other two books in this series (I am not the only blogger who has done this). We loved it so much Stacey has never read a book so fast - I am usually the fast reader, she finished this book before I did. It's that good.  The lead Violet is a strong female character who like most teens struggles with choices although some of hers are the supernatural kind.  I could go on and on but I will save the gushing for our review. 

I think the U.S. is pretty much every author’s dream market; so it’s a dream come true to have Embrace being published for that audience. There is such a wealth of talented YA authors in the US, so it is such a privilege to be in the mix.

When I started writing Embrace, I had no idea where it would lead. Somewhere in the process I started to imagine what might happen down the track. Pretty much the usual - step 1: agent, step 2: Australian publisher, step 3: international markets. To be honest with you, I pretty much fell over when step 1 came through! You can imagine what I was doing when I signed with Germany and the UK and then finally, the US (If you’re struggling to picture it, think so much excited pacing and intermittent outbursts of laughter that I was actually evicted from my home and told to walk the block a few times! Twenty minutes after my return ... I was evicted again.).

I’m looking forward to everything about this experience. The bottom line is that I have written this story that I am incredibly passionate about and I want to share it with readers. I also love chatting with people who have read the book and even though I’m on the other side of the world it’s so easy now with all of our social networking. People can chat to me on Goodreads, Facebook and through the websites. Having access to that interaction between author and reader is such a highlight.

On the other hand, when I think about what makes me nervous, I’d be lying if I didn’t say reviews. I’m human and I haven’t developed a very thick skin yet! But, of course, they only make me nervous because they matter to me and on the other side, there is nothing like the feeling when reading a positive review. The nerves are worth it.

I only hope that readers come to love Embrace and Violet, Lincoln and Phoenix as much as I do!


You can learn more about Jessica & The Violet Eden Series on her blog.

COVER RELEASE & GIVEAWAY!!

Tomorrow on the Official Embrace Website the cover will be revealed. Stop back by PTB for a chance to win Embrace ARC's.

Little update - the contest will be up at 2pm CST

Crossed Blog Tour! & GIVEAWAY!

We're today's stop on the Crossed Blog tour!!!!!!!  You can continue your adventure of Crossed by checking out the Official Matched Trilogy web page, and the Get Matched Facebook App.

For our tour stop, we have an arts related guest post from Ally, we hope you enjoy!

About Crossed: In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky - taken by the Society to his certain death - only to find that he has escaped, leaving a series of clues in his wake.

Cassia's quest leads her to question much of what she holds dear, even as she finds glimmers of a different life across the border. But as Cassia nears resolve and certainty about her future with Ky, an invitation for rebellion, an unexpected betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander - who may hold the key to the uprising and, still, to Cassia's heart - change the game once again. Nothing is as expected on the edge of Society, where crosses and double crosses make the path more twisted than ever.  
Click HERE to read the first 2 chapters of Crossed!

About Ally: Ally Condie is the author of the international bestseller Matched, and its newly-released sequel, Crossed. Matched was chosen as one of YALSA’s 2011 Teens’ Top Ten, named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2010, selected as the #1 Pick on the Winter Kid’s Indie Next List, and received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. In a starred review for the sequel, Crossed, Kirkus called the Matched series an “addictive, layered dystopic trilogy.”

A former English teacher (who still keeps her license current, just in case!), she lives with her husband and three sons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves reading, writing, running, and listening to her husband play guitar.

When I first knew that the Matched Trilogy would be a trilogy, I knew that I wanted to emphasize one area of the arts in each of the three novels. I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where the arts were important—my mother is a professional artist, and my father always loved playing the piano and telling stories.

Of course, my own personal bent is toward writing—so that was the area of the arts that I focused on in Matched. But I always knew that Crossed would talk about other arts, namely the visual arts. My mom works in the medium of pastels, which are like chalk/charcoal, and her work is gorgeous.

While I can’t paint or draw myself, I deeply appreciate the work of those who can. All my life I grew up surrounded by my mother’s paintings. I saw her go out and see something beautiful and then come home and render it on paper. Like this piece of hers, which is very similar to the geography in Crossed:

I knew Ky’s mother would do the same—that she would have the ability to see beauty and respond to it. Ky is unusual in that he has grown up in the Outer Provinces; he’s had more access to the arts than people within the Society and has lived on a border where people still dared to create. However, they are still restricted in what they can and cannot do, and paint and paper are hard to come by. So Ky’s mother learns to paint with the materials on hand, and though her work doesn’t last long, she knows that there is something important in the act of creation. That knowledge is something she passes along to her son, and we learn through Ky’s narration in Crossed how much that means to him and how integral that is to his character. I hope you enjoy finding out more about Ky in Crossed!

Now check out the Crossed trailer!

 

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We have:

• 1 signed, finished copy of CROSSED
• 1 double sided CROSSED/Book 3 poster
• 3 MATCHED buttons

To giveaway to one lucky winner!

• Click HERE to enter
• All of our regular rules apply
• Giveaway ends 11/14 at 11:59 pm

#OctoberfortheArts Guest Post - Sara Bennett Wealer & Rival Giveaway

All good things must come to an end, but we have a great closing post for our October for the Arts feature and we hope you enjoy it! We have Sara Bennett Wealer stopping by the blog today to talk about Rival and how her experiences with choir growing up impacted her writing. 

Music was pretty much my life growing up. In high school it was sort of like my sport. I sang in the show choir and the chamber choir, performed in the school musicals, did contests, State Choir, music camp, etc. Our school had a pretty competitive music program, so it seemed like there was always something to audition for – and always somebody just waiting to steal your spotlight.

That’s the thing about the arts: perfection is pretty much the price of entry, and not everybody can be the star. Performers learn this at a young age, and you get used to living in the pressure cooker. It gets harder when the people you’re competing against are friends. Add in the other typical pressures of being a teenager: school, boys, girl gossip, socioeconomic differences, etc. and you’ve got a setting just ripe for conflict.

That’s why I wrote RIVAL. I wanted to capture how it felt to sing “serious” repertoire at a competitive level, and I tried to show all of the emotional complications that come with having to go up against people who are friends, or enemies -- or both. While RIVAL isn’t based on any of my real-life experiences, it does draw upon memories of how stressful it could be to want something so badly, knowing all the while that not only did you have to perform your very best, but other people were going to perform their best, too, and they just might perform better.

If you really want to make it in the arts, you have to really love it. In my case, I loved it too much to let the rivalries and daily pressure become part of my daily life. I decided to sing for a hobby and became a writer instead.

I wrote RIVAL for kids who are interested in the arts like I was. I also wrote it for people who don’t know much about them. I tried to take the mystery out of things like opera by showing that regular kids are enjoying and singing it every day. My hope is to spark interest and encourage people to learn more about the songs and the topics in the book; a great place to start is my website, where I’ve provided information and links to YouTube videos. You can find it here: http://www.sarabennettwealer.com/fun_who.shtml

But RIVAL is more than just an arts book. It’s a book about friendship, family and the ways our own needs and experiences color how we view other people. It’s even got a little romance! I hope everybody will find something to identify with in RIVAL. If music is your life, like it was mine, I hope you’ll find it an authentic celebration of the singing experience. And if you have rivals, I hope it will reassure you that you’re not alone.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We have one Finished Copy of Rival, a signed book plate, and a signed bookmark to giveaway to one lucky winner!

• Leave a comment on this post letting us know what you thought of October for the Arts, do you want to see more features like this? Please also include your email or some other way for us to contact you.  
• Our standard rules apply - this is opening internationally but if you are out side of the US you are responsible for the cost of shipping.
• Giveaway ends 11/6 at 11:59 pm central time.

#OctoberfortheArts Guest Post - Tara Kelly & Amplified #Giveaway

Tara Kelly is stopping by the blog today to talk a little bit about how music is a must have when she is writing.

I can’t create a story without music. Often times I need to build a playlist before I can even write a first chapter. I start by building a general soundtrack, something I listen to over and over while writing. But I also make a playlist for every important character in the book and play those songs when I really feel I need to get into their heads.


So, I’m going to tell you about how I came to write Amplified. But…I’m going to do it with songs. Hey, nobody ever accused me of being normal.


I started with a song that represented my main character, Jasmine. It had to be a mix of sass and sugar—mostly sass. Something I could see her LOVING and losing herself in. Took me awhile, but I found just the song…


American Dreamgirl by Joydrop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-dFfKjMlFo


Next up was a theme song for Sean, the snarky bassist that drives Jasmine crazy. I needed a little anger, a lot of melody, and a big helping of intensity. This song by Celldweller? Jackpot.


Afraid This Time by Celldweller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLCZj5rywA


Then there’s Veta, the singer and one of my favorite characters ever. I mean, I love all the characters that take residence in my head (I often don’t get to choose them, I swear), but Veta has a special place in my heart. In her words, she’s just plain good juju. Mostly sunny with a little angst and fire thrown in for good measure. Garbage is SO the ticket, especially this song.


Push It by Garbage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-CHEnJ7gnc


Bryn…the drummer and self-appointed ‘head’ of the band. Bryn needed a song with a mouth, heavy guitars, and well…mouth. He’s a complicated creature, more so than he seems. So of course the only option here could be…


Shut Me Up by Mindless Self Indulgence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYhbRiuVK0


Felix made me smile throughout the book. Picture a six-foot four guy with a blue fro in a taffeta skirt. Then throw in funny, sweet, and child-like. You might hear a little something like this in your head…


Lullaby by The Cure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS6t56U9tBg&ob=av2e


Now that I had all these different personalities/songs mashed together in one playlist, I needed to figure out what the band sounded like together. The Birthday Massacre fit the bill quite well, but this song in particular:


Red Stars by The Birthday Massacre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHzsyBag438


I also needed a song for the fun Santa Cruz setting and general mood of the book. Something that would probably play in the opening credits…if it were a movie (a girl can dream). At the time I’d discovered a band called Cut Copy. And let’s just say I listened to their album “In Ghost Colours” over and OVER while writing Amplified.


Hearts On Fire by Cut Copy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgpgkI3eMxM&ob=av2n


There’s a nice little taste for you. If you’d like to hear more songs from the Amplified soundtrack, I’ll be posting them very soon on the Amplified website: http://amplifiedthebook.com

Hope y'all enjoyed learning a little bit more about how Tara integrates music into her writing.

GIVEAWAY TIME

• ARC of Amplified
• Regular contest rules apply
• To enter leave us a comment letting us know which song from Amplified was your favorite. Make sure we have a way to contact you. Easiest way is to have your email linked in your blogger profile but you can leave your email address or twitter name in your comment.
• Contest ends 10/30

#OctoberfortheArts Guest Blog - Jessia Martinez and #Giveaway!

Jessica Martinez joins us on the blog today talking about her debut novel Virtuosity.  We hope you enjoy learning more about the book, the pressures of being a top violinist and Jessica.  And don't forget to stop by Jessica's web page to learn more about her background as a violinist (yes, Jessica did/does play the violin, click HERE to listen to her play) and other fun details about Virtuosity.

VIRTUOSITY opens with a girl lying on a balcony, dangling her million-dollar violin off the edge. That image came to me first—before plot or characters or conflict—and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. Her story had to be written. See, as a violinist, I could think of all sorts of reasons she would want to do drop that violin.

Some background: I started playing when I was three and spent most of my childhood (and a good chunk of adulthood) a slave to music. I loved it. It was my identity and the way I communicated with the world. But at the same time there were negatives to be endured too, like anxiety, isolation, insomnia, impossible expectations, and brutal disappointments, to name a few. I knew mothers like Carmen’s mother. I knew kids and adults who took the drug Carmen takes. I had teachers like Carmen’s who never noticed that I was a child, and I felt her isolation from her peers and even the musicians in her midst. After all of that, it may be hard to believe that I really loved it, but I did. The act of making music was completely fulfilling. It was everything.

That mixture of love and hate is at the heart of VIRTUOSITY. It fuels the conflict between Carmen and her mother, muddies the romance between her and Jeremy, and makes breaking away from all the expectations nearly impossible.

I think that same love/hate combination can be found throughout the performing arts. Only the things that we really love have the power to drive us truly crazy, right? And wherever there’s opportunity for fame and excellence, the door opens for corruption. What we see or hear on stage can be astonishingly beautiful, but there are often layers of grit and pain beneath. That juxtaposition of beauty and pain—that’s the world I was compelled to expose with VIRTUOSITY.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We have one ARC of Virtuosity to giveaway to one lucky winner!

• Click HERE to enter
• Our standard rules apply - this is opening internationally but if you are out side of the US you are responsible for the cost of shipping.
• Giveaway ends 10/23 at 11:59 pm central time.

#OctoberfortheArts Sophie Flack Guest Blog & #Giveaway

We are SUPER excited to have Sophie Flack join us on the blog today! We have a guest blog from Sophie about how being a ballet dancer influenced her writing habits.   We hope you enjoy learning more about ballet, Bunheads and Sophie!

Check out this great author video Sophie did for Little Brown - she talks ballet and Bunheads (with some great personal pics!)

As a professional dancer, I was often thrown into ballets with very little rehearsal. One particular evening, a dancer sprained her ankle right before the performance and there was absolutely no one to fill in for her. After some head scratching, a ballet mistress asked me to perform the part even though I hadn’t danced the role in over five years. Of course, I agreed, because I frankly didn’t have a choice.

Onstage the choreography came flooding back to me as soon as I heard the first few bars of music. It was as if my body was pre-programmed with the steps that I’d danced years before. I leapt with gusto, marched in formation, and stepped in time with the other girls. I was really very impressed with myself.

And then, just at the crucial moment when the formation moves to the left in unison, I lunged to the right. Jutting out from the geometric formation, I looked out at the vast expanse of darkness before me. I couldn’t make out the audience members’ faces, but I could feel thousands of eyes staring back at me. “Oh brother,” I muttered under my breath.

There was simply nothing to be done. I grinned and kept going. Sure I wish I could have revised that moment, gone back and gone the other way, but dance is performed live and mistakes happen.

While revising scenes in the Bunheads manuscript, I had time to consider my word choice and the tempo of the scene. I could finesse paragraphs and cut extraneous details that slowed down the plot. Having the time to see the manuscript through many incarnations, I was able to create the best possible read. While a ballet may look effortless, dancers make a million choices each moment they are on stage: they consider their placement, how to execute a step, how to phrase the music, and when to breathe. Since dancers don’t have the opportunity to revise during performances, they spend a majority of the day rehearsing which choices they will make onstage. As a writer, I work to keep my prose simple and uncomplicated; similarly, as a dancer, I found myself continually stripping down my movements to their base forms; I strove to remove all extraneous flourish. And while I would have loved the opportunity to "revise" a performance, I understood that dance is ephemeral and fleeting. The fact that it’s live is what makes it so exciting to watch--absolutely anything can happen.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We have a signed ARC of Bunheads to giveaway to one lucky winner!

• Click HERE to enter
• Our standard rules apply - this is opening internationally but if you are out side of the US you are responsible for the cost of shipping.
• Giveaway ends 10/16 at 11:59 pm central time.

Guest Post by Nick James - Boy Book Checklist

Well now that y'all have told us what you want to see in "boy books", Nick James shares his thoughts on the subject.   But before we get to the main event, we have to announce the winner of the Signed/Personalized copy of Skyship Academy - the winner is Christi!!!!!!!!!!! Christi we have emailed you already so be on the look out for that!  So now without further ado, here's Nick!

Boy Book Checklist - 

Top 10 ways to Hook Boy Readers 

When I set out to write my debut, Skyship Academy: The Pearl Wars, I knew that I wanted to target boy readers. That’s not to say I wanted to leave everyone else out, but my initial inspiration was to write the kind of story I would’ve wanted to read when I was thirteen. Given that this was my plan, I put a lot of thought into the aspects that make a novel a good “boy book” and I kept coming back to these ten thoughts. Now, of course it’s a bit generalized. Whenever you do a list like this it’s going to be generalized. There are plenty of boys with different tastes and girls who flock to this kind of thing, but by and large, here’s what I found appeals to boy readers. My evidence on this elusive breed? I know them, I work with them, and most importantly, I was one myself.

1. A good story, well told 

This is a given, regardless of a book’s audience. Boy, girl. Young, old. Alien, non-Alien. Everyone likes a good story.

 2. Boys that do more than blow stuff up

Likewise, while it’s pure fantasy to go around blowing things up (and fun fantasy, to boot), the really good books for boys feature protagonists with some depth. A sense of self-doubt, an inner turmoil or weakness. The macho soldier type is only interesting for so long. Case in point: Superman vs. Spider-man. While Superman is the bigger icon (partly because he’s been around longer), I’d argue that Spider-man is more popular among readers. The reason? He’s relatable. He’s got weaknesses that go beyond the external.

3. Girls that do more than look hot 

Most guys in the real world aren’t attracted to damsel-in-distress, devoid-of-personality girls, so why would they want to read about them? The stronger, more unattainable a female character, the more allure she has. Make her intelligent to boot, and the chase is on!

4. Gadgets, cool vehicles & puzzles 

Boys love to figure stuff out. I mean, what is a video game, really, but an extended, visual puzzle? Non fiction books about gadgets or vehicles, with detailed diagrams and schematics, are so popular. It’s the same reason Legos are popular, or Transformers. It appeals to that tactile sense.

5. Plot. And better yet, plot with tension 

Guys are naturally more goal-driven. While you can get away with more chattiness in other genres, I think boy-books function best when you merge that style with something much more plot-driven. Give a character a goal or an immediate threat he has to overcome. A sense of accomplishment is very important. Make that character an underdog who, at face value, seems completely not up to the task, and you’ve got yourself a story!

6. Humor, humor, humor 

This applies especially to middle grade and younger YA, but it’s a vital part of any novel targeting this readership. Even if it’s a super-serious story, humor is key. Humor, for a lot of boys, is their gateway into a story or character. And humor doesn’t necessarily mean you’re telling a “light” or meaningless story. In fact, humor can make sad moments even sadder.

7. A cool cover 

Guys are visual (well, we’re all visual to some extent), and I’m not sure a cover with an artistic wilting flower or abstract portrait representing grief/love/jealousy/whatever is going to appeal. There’s a reason so many “boy books” have an action scene from the story illustrated on the cover. I wonder, though, would illustrations or photographs appeal more?

8. A visual storytelling style 

Going along with the last thought, the more you can make your book read like a movie, the better off you’ll be. That’s not to put movies above books, but like I mentioned before, boys are more visual. Of course they can appreciate good writing/figurative language/literary fiction, but if a book can make them forget that they’re reading a book, even better!

9. Explosions 

So if I haven’t driven that visual thing home yet, here’s my final example. If looked at superficially, this point could be seen as pretty stereotypical of the worst in “boy books.” But what is an explosion, really? It’s an external, visual representation of conflict. It’s big and dramatic--an exclamation point on that goal-driven plotline I talked about earlier. And if a book needs it, it’s a “hey, are you paying attention?” jolt of energy. 

10. Cliffhanger endings 

I don’t necessarily mean at the end of the book itself, but this type of storytelling device works wonders at the end of chapters. Remember the Goosebumps books? It seemed like every chapter ended with one. Sure, most turned out to be fake-outs, but still! It’s one of those things that keeps even the most reluctant readers glued to the page.

Guest Post: Kendare Blake - Researching The Dead

Each month we pick a debut author - sometimes it's a tough choice and sometimes we just know who we want. Kendare Blake was probably the first debut author we picked out. Last year, I read her novel Sleepwalk Society, which I loved. So when I found out Kendare would be making her YA Debut with Anna Dressed in Blood - I knew, we had to spotlight her on our DA list.  We wanted to know what Kendare had to research while writing Anna. Hope you enjoy!

About the Author: Kendare Blake is an import from South Korea who was raised in the United States by caucasian parents. You know, that old chestnut. She received a Bachelor's degree in Business from Ithaca College and a Master's degree in Writing from Middlesex University in London. She brakes for animals, the largest of which was a deer, which sadly didn't make it, and the smallest of which was a mouse, which did, but it took forever. Amongst her likes are Greek Mythology, rare red meat and veganism. She also enjoys girls who can think with the boys like Ayn Rand, and boys who scare the morality into people, like Bret Easton Ellis.

About the Book: Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

Researching the Dead

By Kendare Blake

When I was writing ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD, I was up to my eyeballs in gore. Because the story itself is gory, gritty, and well-stocked with horrible tales of woe and violence. All of the accounts are fictionalized, of course. But they’re based on fact. And they weren’t hard to come by. Have you looked at the serial killer page on Wikipedia? It’ll make you not want to leave the house for days. Doing that kind of research, all alone, can drive you to a dark place. I mean, you can only look at the police photo of a sliced-up Mary Kelley for so long before you toss your cookies.


Luckily for me, I have morbid friends. One of my oldest friends is a Master’s educated serial killer expert, and had no shortage of terrible stories to tell me, of people dismembered and stuffed into pipes…I mean, you get the idea. But the disturbing part of the research was the easiest of all. Because mere weeks before I was set to write, my melon stuffed to the brim with more blood than I could fit into a dozen books, I still didn’t have a handle on one of my central characters. I still hadn’t found Anna. Who was she, besides this murderous specter, this force of nature clothed in red?


So I went to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where the novel takes place. I told my husband (then fiancé) that I wanted to do location research, scout scenery, and that was true. But more than that, I needed to wander around that town and get to know my girl.


We drove the route that Cas and his mother drive in the book, and stayed in the most cozy and adorable (and decidedly NOT haunted) Bed and Breakfast. We canvassed the city, and the outlying areas, and we took pictures. Along the way we’d talk premise, and I would say things like, “This could be the spot. Look at those rock formations.” And my husband would say idiotic things like, “I bet I could climb those.” You know, man stuff.


I passed houses near the waterfront, sitting on a hill, painted crimson and blue and mustard yellow, and I thought, “Cas and his mom could rent one of these places.” I popped into antique shops and memorized their smell. I knew I wanted an antique shop in the book, but I didn’t know where it would pop up. I watched Superior slither. Everything was going well. But I still didn’t know Anna.


The best bet was the cemeteries. I wandered through a few, drove past others, making notes and trying not to feel weird about walking on dead people. My husband didn’t want to stop at too many, because despite his I-can-climb-wet-rock-formations man-talk, cemeteries make him jump and scream and pretty much turn into both Shaggy and Scooby Doo. But on one of our last days in Thunder Bay, we pulled off the road after I spotted a tiny, isolated cluster of graves.


The headstones were old, cracked and grown over with moss. The grass was left long. It was a Finnish cemetery, for some of the many Finnish immigrants who called the city home. The light was starting to slant, and my husband was getting cagey. But I kept walking, and around the trunk of a leafless tree, I found her.


Anna’s grave was simple and cheap, nothing more than a rough cut slab of concrete with crudely molded letters spelling her name. It was cracked and leaning, and twisted over with dead vine. It was simple, and sadly innocent. That the name on the grave was “Anna” seemed a twist of fate. I stood there for a long time, and the moment passed as moments do. But I walked out of that cemetery with a book.


Moral of the story, I guess, if this story needs a moral, is that sometimes things just fall into place. And sometimes as a writer you have to let them.

Sara Grant Guest Post: Transitioning a Short Story into a Novel

Dark Parties has been on of our favorite reads this year. When we learned it was originally a short story, we wanted to know how Sara took that and turned into this amazing novel. 

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Neva was born and raised in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies and xenophobia. Hundreds of years ago, her country constructed an electrified dome to protect itself from the outside world. What once might have protected now imprisons. Her country is decaying and its citizens are dying. Neva and her friends dream of freedom. A forbidden party leads to complications. Suddenly Neva’s falling for her best friend’s boyfriend, uncovering secrets that threaten to destroy her friends, her family and her country – and discovering the horrifying truth about what happens to The Missing...
Thanks for inviting me and asking me to talk about transitioning a short story into a novel.


Dark Parties started as a question. I’d just moved to London, England, from Indianapolis, Indiana. I was immersed in the paperwork and politics of immigration. Both sides of the Atlantic were struggle with immigration issues – who and how many should be allowed to enter a country. That got me thinking....what if a country closed its borders to people and ideas?

The first iteration of the story was written as a good-bye letter from Neva to her mother. It explained she was escaping their closed society. This story was scribbled in a Moleskin notebook as part of a writing exercise. As soon as I finished the draft, I knew the letter format wasn’t working and that this idea had more potential.


Sometimes a ‘what if’ idea has a life of its own. That was very much the case with idea behind what is now Dark Parties. This question led to more questions of national and personal identity. The citizens in my fictitious country grew more and more alike. Its population dwindled. How would living in this fish bowl change the culture and its citizens?


The short story was initially titled ‘Beige’. Yeah, not the most compelling title, I know. The backdrop for the story was a uniform race of people with all the individuality bred out. The main character was always going to be a teenager who was struggling with how to be unique in a homogeneous society. Neva and her best friend Sanna host a party for their friends in the pitch black. Without the burden of sight, they think they will be free to discover who they really are. In the short story, Neva used the anonymity of the party to tell her boyfriend Ethan that she was leaving and to invite him to come along.


I submitted Dark Parties, the short story, to the SCBWI British Isles www.britishscbwi.org Undiscovered Voices anthology www.undiscoveredvoices.com. I let an editor friend and my niece read it. They both wanted to know what happened next and encouraged me to write the rest of Neva’s story. They also had great suggestions for how to expand Dark Parties into so much more than its original 2,585 words. I told myself that if my story was selected, then I would write the novel. Luckily mine was one of the twelve stories included in the anthology.


Then the real work began. Most of the short story appears in the first chapter of the novel. All the building blocks were there – the world, the issues, and most of the main characters. Here’s how the opening lines changed when I expanded the story. I think it demonstrates how the story needed space to breathe.

The first paragraph from the original short story: I wave my hand in front of my face, but I can’t see it. It’s pitch black. I seem to have disappeared, blended in. My father would finally be proud of me.

The first paragraph from the book: I’m standing in the dark, not the gentle grey of dusk or the soft black of a moonlit night but pitch-black. My heart batters my ribs like a bird beating its wings against a glass cage. I wave my hand in front of my face. I can’t see it. I never knew it could be so dark. My edges are merging with the inky blackness around me. My dad would finally be proud of me. I’ve blended in.

To fill the pages of a novel, the story needed more depth and conflict. I added a romance and a rebellion. In the short story, Neva had decided she would try to escape. The short story showed a moment that encapsulated a bigger story. It gave you a cropped shot of a panoramic picture.


I spent the next three years writing and revising and showing readers the bigger picture. The heart of the story never changed. It’s about the power of diversity and a connection between granddaughter and grandmother. It explored how far someone would go for freedom. But it expanded into a story about complex, imperfect people who make bad decisions for what they believe are the right reasons.

It’s tough to talk in any more depth about how the novel changed without giving away too many of the surprises. The experience of writing Dark Parties was like illuminating a world with a flashlight beam and then flipping on a spotlight and eventually flooding the place with a bright light.

Guest Post by Emily Wing Smith: Back When You Were Easier To Love Tour

We had the privileged of meeting Emily while we were in NY and are excited to have her stopping by the blog today. Don't forget to check out her 2010 Debut Back When You Were Easier To Love.

 What do you do when you’re not writing-
hobbies, jobs, family, pets, etc?

When I’m not writing I can be found substitute teaching. Most people hate subbing. I love it because it’s just random enough to fit my lifestyle. I like that there isn't any permanence to it—if one day goes totally haywire, I have a complete fresh start the next day, at a school where I don’t have a history or a future with any of the people I meet.

Other hobbies include compulsively organizing anything in my house, whether my closet, my bookshelves, or the bookshelves in my closet. I love to travel to exotic locales like Altoona, PA and Chatham, NY.  I enjoy taking pictures of, and then devouring, chocolate desserts.

Alison Goodman Guest Post

Super excited to have Alison Goodman on the blog today.  Alison is the Australian author who wrote Eon & Eona (click for review), a YA Asian Fantasy series.  I first found the series when Eon came out in 2008 and couldn't wait for Eona's release (2011).  To learn more about Alison, check out this recent interview with TheAge.com.au. You can also visit her on her web page or the book's web page. (You can also read the first chapter's of both Eon and Eona on Alison's web page.)  We hope you enjoy getting to know Alison through her guest post!

Maximum Engagement!
By Alison Goodman

There is a joke I like that pretty much sums up the attitude I think you need to have to be a professional writer. It goes like this:

One day, two little girls are told by their teacher that there is a surprise waiting in a room for them. The first little girl flings open the door only to find that the room is full of manure from floor to ceiling. She stares at it for a moment then bursts into tears and runs away. The second little girl wades straight into the huge dung heap and starts shovelling through it with her hands.
“Why are you doing that?” the teacher asks.
The little girl answers, “Because there’s got to be a horse in here somewhere.”

Ha! I reckon that kind of optimism will get you anywhere. And if you want to write professionally you need that little girl’s positive attitude. You also need her tenacity, scary single-mindedness, and capacity for hard work. “What about talent?” you might ask. Yes, you need that too, but frankly there are a lot of talented people out there. The things that separate the talented from the published-talented are tenacity, hard work, and the kind of steel-rimmed optimism that enables you to overcome the crush of rejection and send work out again and again.

Okay, enough of the hard stuff. What about the fun stuff of being a writer? I can assure you there is plenty of that, too. Topmost on my list of great things about being a writer is the fact that I get to create worlds and people and stories for a living. And for me, that means all types of stories for all types of audiences. My latest books, EON and EONA, are a fantasy duology set in a mythical medieval land inspired by China and Japan. I never thought I would be writing epic fantasy – my first book was SF and my second was a crime/thriller – but I go where the story goes, and when I thought of the story of Eona, a young girl who masquerades as a boy to bond with an energy dragon of good fortune, it felt like a good fit for the fantasy genre.

I have to admit, I’m not a fan of big clumps of back-story in novels, or pages and pages of description, so I’ve written EON and EONA in my usual style: lots of pace, vivid details, strong storylines, with the world and characters created within the action so that there is always forward movement. I call it maximum engagement writing – the reader really feels like they are there and living the adventure. The books seem to be clicking with a lot of readers, even those who don’t usually like fantasy, which is such a buzz for me. And last week I got a call from my publisher to tell me that EONA has debuted at #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List! I was so excited I could hardly breathe, and I’m still grinning like a fool.

Another fun aspect of being a writer is that I get to travel for research. I like to immerse my readers in a vividly realised world with lots of sensory detail, so I often do hands-on research as well as the more standard research from resource books. For EON and EONA, I travelled to Hong Kong, The New Territories, Japan, and Singapore to soak up information I could use in my world creation. I ate miso stews in tiny alleyway eating houses; breathed air thick with humidity and the salty smell of dried fish; felt the slip of silk through my hands; and, one morning, I sat at my hotel window for an hour and watched an old man on a roof greet the new day with a mesmerising tai-chi dance, his little Chihuahua doing her own doggy dance as she busily sniffed every corner of her high altitude domain.

I also took some Chinese sword lessons so that I could describe how it felt for my character Eona to wield a blade. I still have the large, curved wooden practice sword propped in the corner of my work room, and sometimes I take it out and start the swinging figure-eight twirl of blade and hilt that forms the basis of the sword-play in EON and EONA. I’m not very good at it – my Jack Russell always runs from the room when I pick up the sword – but Eona is no slouch and can fight with two of them (thanks to my imagination, if not my expertise).

Some people in the book biz have told me that I should stay in the same genre or I’ll lose my readers, but that is not the way I’m built – I like to challenge myself and create different kinds of stories. What I can promise my readers, however, is that they will always get a maximum engagement adventure from me, because that is what I like to read, and it is what I love to write.

Guest Post by Tessa Gratton : Researching Blood Magic

Blood Magic is one of those books, I have been waiting to read since the moment I heard about it- so picking our Debut author for May was easy peasy. The only problem we had was deciding if we wanted to do a Q&A with Tessa Gratton or have her guest post? Decisions, decisions... Luckily, Tessa graciously agreed to both. Hope you enjoy our first installment a guest post on researching Blood Magic.  

I am a research addict – whether it’s swimming through the stacks in the basement of the university library to find old tomes about ancient burial techniques or googling random facts, I can spend all day immersed in research.


Some of the best (and by best, I often mean grossest) things I’ve found while doing research for BLOOD MAGIC:

• Modern coffins are often made with an internal lock. AN INTERNAL LOCK. Think about that: either we’re talking vampires, or being buried alive. Being buried alive used to happen frequently, when doctors didn’t have such sophisticated equipment. Some graves included a pull-chain attached to a bell, so if you were buried because you were in a coma, and suddenly woke up, you’d be able to pull the bell and somebody would come running to dig you up. Which is much better than trying to claw your way out all zombie-fied. But seriously – we still need internal locks on coffins in 2011? YIKES.

• A blog from a family in Bulgaria about their yearly process of slaughtering pigs. I found this when looking up what a bowl of coagulated blood might feel and smell like. It followed the process from picking which pig was doomed to sausage links. Fascinating, dirty work.

• RESOMATION! http://www.resomation.com/ In which instead of being buried or cremated, your body after death is broken down by chemicals. And your remains are a clear liquid and bone ash. With a lower carbon footprint than cremation.

• I read an awful lot about the process of embalming. Enough to know that I’d rather not be embalmed, or embalm any of my loved ones when they die if that’s an option. In some states it’s legal to skip that step, though you can’t have an open-casket funeral.

• Body snatching was common in the US until the late 1800s. Because – get this – it was required for a doctor’s license that you take an anatomy course involving dissection, but dissecting human remains was illegal. One way or another, a law had to be broken.

• In the Middle Ages, one cure for the common cold was boiling a puppy alive. And then drinking the water. YUM! (I tried to work that into one of the books, but never fear, there are no puppies harmed in The Blood Journals. Yet.)

So there you have it. My favorite tidbits of research so far. I promise that despite the gruesome and weird nature of my research, there are some pleasant, and even beautiful things in my books

The Lucky Kind Blog Tour Stop: Guest Post & Giveaway

We have Alyssa B. Sheinmel stopping by today. I recently read her book The Lucky Kind; it's about a boy coming to terms with a secret his parents have been keeping. We are excited to have Alyssa stopping by and letting us know what she is doing when she is not writing her fantastic books. 

  

When I'm Not Writing 

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

I’m not someone who is constantly writing. Since it’s more of a hobby than it is a job for me, the vast majority of my life takes place when I’m not writing.

When I’m not writing, I’m reading. I’ve never understood people who complain that they can’t find anything to read. I can’t manage to run out of things to read. My mental to do list of books is always growing: I pile on new books and old books; books I’d always meant to read, and books I read years ago that I want to go back to. Given the choice between giving up writing and giving up reading, writing loses every time.


When I’m not writing, I’m cleaning. Seriously. I’m one of those people who can’t relax if things are messy. I walk around my apartment picking things up and replacing them just slightly to the left, or to the right, or someplace else entirely – whatever looks neater. I’m constantly straightening the frames that hang on my walls.


When I’m not writing, I’m doing yoga. Now, honestly, I don’t do yoga nearly as much as I would like to, or as much as I should. But I am one of those people who will corner you at a party and tell you how yoga has completely changed my life; one of those people who will get very, very defensive if you tell me that yoga is merely “restorative.” I will insist that it can also be a hardcore workout, and urge you to try it sometime.


When I’m not writing, I’m eating. I love trying new restaurants, and I even love to cook – but only sometimes. My love of cooking depends on what time of year it is. When the summer ends and it starts to get cold, when the holidays are coming, I suddenly can’t stop cooking. (Nothing much elaborate – sometimes cooking is only making scrambled eggs for dinner instead of ordering in from the local Chinese place. But I do get ambitious in the kitchen from time to time, too – rolling pie crust, making up to four stuffings on Thanksgiving, inventing a new pasta dish.) I even have an apron, folded up neatly in a drawer in my kitchen, though I almost never wear it.

When I’m not writing, I’m walking around Manhattan with my dog. This is one of my favorite things in the world to do. I also love taking him for drives, though truth be told, it’s almost always someone else doing the driving. (That way I get to hold my pup in my lap.)


When I’m not writing, I’m visiting California. I’ve lived in Manhattan since I was thirteen years old, and on the East Coast since I was six. But I was born out in California, and I still think of myself as a California girl. My favorite person in the whole world, my grandmother, now lives out in California with my dad, and she’s my favorite excuse to get on a plane.


But when I’m not writing, I’m never quite content. I always get a niggling, nagging feeling if I go too long without writing, a combination of guilt and forgetfulness, that feeling you get when you know there’s something you’re supposed to be doing that you put off, something you meant to do that you’ve forgotten. So, although I’m often not writing, I’m never far from it, either.

Giveaway Time:

• 2 winners - a copy of The Lucky Kind

• US Only

• Contest Ends 5/13

• Fill out form to enter

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Dark Goddess Blog Tour

We are excited to have Sarwat Chadda back for more!  This time we get a little introduction to the world of Billi SanGreal.  You can check out our our previous Q & A with Sarwat HERE.   We hope you enjoy getting to know a little more about the world of Devil's Kiss & Dark Goddess!  Also be sure to check out Sarwat's blog series, Kiss me, Kill me, where he's featuring some of today's best paranormal YA authors and books!

Dark Goddess is out TODAY! Be sure to stop by your local bookstore to pick up your copy!  Devil's Kiss is now available in both paper back and hard cover. 

No compromises. That should be the writer’s first priority. You’ll never please everyone so you might as well please yourself. DEVIL’S KISS and DARK GODDESS are set in a violent, brutal version of our world. How could it be otherwise? It’s one with all sorts of dreadful, inhuman monsters always looking out for their next victim. Old school monsters. Vampires who will bleed you dry because it’s only that last drop that sustains them, the one pushed through by that final heartbeat, the drop carrying the soul. Werewolves who hate humanity above and beyond all other living things and want nothing better than to rip us to shreds. And fallen angels that have nothing but contempt for us creatures of clay.





Billi never compromises either. Given the choice of love or saving strangers, she chooses the latter. The definition of hero is one who sacrifices themselves. They pay the price in blood and tears so the rest sleep more easily. They bear the wounds for us, be they on the flesh or in the heart.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

Thanks to Hyperion, we have 2 sets of books to giveaway! 2 winners will each win a copy of Devil's Kiss and Dark Goddess! This giveaway is open to readers with US and Canada addresses only.  All of our other standard rules apply. Ends Feb 1st @ 11:59pm central time.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER!