Just because I’m a teacher doesn’t mean I get summers off. These past 6 weeks were my busiest time as a writer. I participated in a  month-long blogfest in July and submitted my query and first 200 words for critique. As part of my research I watched Michael Hauge’s DVD on screenwriting (easily applied to writing novels). I thought I’d share some tidbits of wisdom I gleamed from his seminar on grabbing the reader in the first 10 pages. Here are the top 5 openings to employ according to Hauge.

1) The Big Action: used when your hero is a cop or spy . . .or whatever job where action is part of their everyday life. This opening is powerful because emotion grows out of conflict.

2) Outside Action: some big occurrence of action, could take up to 5 pages. Hero is out of the action and then story cuts to hero, showing them in their everyday life with no idea of what’s about to happen. Now you have superior position, anticipation, and curiosity. Think ET & Star Wars

3) The Prologue: takes place years or centuries before present day. Think Splash & Lord of the Rings. *Note: make sure the agent you’re querying accepts the dreaded prologue!

4) The Flashback: starts in present day but flashes back to tell the story & then flashes back to present. Think Titanic & Out of Africa.

5) Everyday Hero Intro: hero living everyday life before they’re plunged into their major conflict. Keep in mind that the first character introduced should be your hero so your reader will know who they’re rooting for. First 5-10 pages should present your hero with some new desire to get the story moving.

What opening did you employ? I used #5 but I’m still struggling with how to do this best. Most articles I’ve read in the past two years since I started writing say not to throw the reader into action or start your first sentence with dialogue. Agents/editors claim it’s a cheat & shows you’re not a great writer. Yet, through the contest I participated in, it seems those stories were the ones favored time and time again. And according to Hauge, the big action seems fine. His DVD dated back to 2005 but most of his advice still seemed relevant to me. N-E-ways, if you have any other tidbits of wisdom for this struggling writer, please share before I drown my sorrows in chocolate and gain another 10 pounds:):)

This week’s mission is to post the first 200 words of our current manuscript and then hop around the blogosphere to give constructive criticism. After last week’s assignment, my pride is zero, lol. Give me your honest opinion even if you  hate it because I’d rather hear it from you rather than an agent or editor! Here’s my info:

Name: Jamie Ayres

Title: 18 THINGS or RANDOM LEE CHOSEN (still can’t decide!)

Genre: YA, coming-of-age love story

Novel Length: 75,000 words

**I’ve made changes based on comments below so here’s my revised 200 words:

I needed a change. The first of April caused me to realize I’d been a fool carrying a secret crush for Random Lee since kindergarten. The dye was step one in my master plan of making him notice me as more than the girl in pigtails he used to chase at recess.

“Why does my shower look like a scene from a slasher movie?” I ask my best friend Nicole, towering over me. She laughs diabolically, pretending to wield a knife. “This is not funny. Did you read the instructions right?”

Cocking her head, she says, “Hang on, Olga. This may hurt a bit.” She scrubs in the conditioner and rinses fiercely.

Five minutes later I study the color in the mirror. “Crap.” Although my caramel hair turns darker in winter when Michigan doesn’t see sunlight, it had never before been devoid of all brown and gold.

“You look like you dyed your hair with Kool-Aid,” Nic comments, not helping.

I pick up the box, examining the photo. “I don’t understand. It warns the results may vary slightly from the color in the picture, but this isn’t even close to Strawberry Blonde.”

Nic gives me a one-armed hug. “You’re red-hot. If Random can’t see that, he’s the fool.”

**Original Post:

  I’ve been in love with Random Lee for as long as I can remember. We bonded in kindergarten over our horrible names. As Olga Worontzoff the second, I’m named after my Russian grandmother. My parents had good intentions, but whatever, the world is full of those. Without action, intentions are worthless, which is why I wanted a change. I bought the dye last night. April first made me wonder if I’d been a fool carrying a secret crush all these years.

“Why does my shower look like a scene from a slasher movie?” I ask my best friend Nicole, towering over me.

She laughs diabolically, pretending to wield a knife. “This is not funny. Did you read the instructions right?”

Cocking her head to the left, she says, “Hang on, this may hurt a bit.” She scrubs shampoo into my curls and rinses fiercely before lathering on the conditioner that came with the home kit.

Five minutes later I study the color in the mirror. “Crap.” Although my caramel hair turns darker in winter when Michigan doesn’t see sunlight, it’s never devoid of all brown and gold.

“You look like you dyed your hair with red Kool-Aid,” Nic comments, not helping.

I pick up the box, examining the photo. “I don’t understand. It warns the results may vary slightly from the color in the picture, but this isn’t even close to Strawberry Blonde. And by the way, you dyed my hair.”

Soooooooooo that’s all folks–hope you’re hooked but if not, let me know your suggestions please and thank you!

WOW! That’s all I can say. I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am for today’s query assignment. I’ll admit I was prideful at the start, thinking I’d written a marvelous query. Boy was I wrong (add it to the already long list of things). I know most of you are probably done looking at queries, but if you’re still up like me, perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking a look at my new one? I’m gonna hop onto some more blogs and look at queries. I apologize for not getting around to everyone yet. It just turns out I totally suck at writing these things and needed lots of time today to fix my own. Not to mention I probably wouldn’t have been that much help anyways in my ignorance. Whoever said ignorance is bliss is wrong!

Dear Kathleen Rushall,

At almost seventeen years of age, Olga finally has a plan: make Random notice her as more than the girl with pigtails he used to chase at recess. After all, she’s been in love with him for as long as she can remember (they bonded over their horrible names in kindergarten).

Just as Olga dares to hope her plan is working, lightning strikes. Literally. She saves his life and they’re rushed to the hospital where a nurse orders some tests and they discover Random has leukemia. So much for the saying lightning never strikes twice.

Olga writes her own prescription in the form of a list titled “18 Things.” The list consists of eighteen quests Random must accomplish before his eighteenth birthday. Olga hopes this journey will help him discover the will to live. What she doesn’t count on is discovering the beauty and strength within herself, and his secret love for her, in the process. Fire-walking, riding the biggest rollercoaster in the U.S. and breaking a world record, not to mention plenty of interferences from a smitten head cheerleader, are minor things. The major quest isn’t even on the list. She’s convinced tragedy helps give life meaning and is not a random act without purpose as his name suggests. Time for a new plan: persuade Random to believe in the same lesson she’s learned on their journey. Pain is the price you pay to love, and it’s worth it. If she fails, she risks losing her soul-mate forever.

This coming-of-age story about friendship and the turmoil of real life is a young adult version of The Bucket List. I learned about you through Deana Barnhart’s “Gearin’ Up to Get an Agent” Blogfest. I’d love to send you my 74,000-word novel, 18 THINGS.

I’m a member of SCBWI, RWA-PRO, YA-RWA, and Southwest Florida Romance Writers. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society already agreed to review the book upon publication in its national newsletter (circulation around 250,000). I’ve appended the first five pages of the novel to the end of this message. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Very Best Regards,

Jamie Ayres

*Left off usual contact info for blogfest

I know some of you (mainly friends/family) looked at my query a few weeks ago when I posted it, asking help with the title. BTW, I’m still not sure between 18 Things or Random Lee Chosen, but I guess the publisher chooses when it’s all said and done. Now I’m posting it again as part of the month-long blogfest I’m participating in. Can’t wait to get back valuable feedback from this AWESOME writing community:)

July 18, 2011

Marsal Lyon Literary Agency LLC

Dear Kathleen Rushall,

After reading about you on Deana Barnhart’s “Gearin’ Up to Get an Agent” Blogfest and noticing you have a soft spot for humorous voices, I’d love to send you my 74,000 word novel. Random Lee Chosen focuses on a teen who finds herself when the boy she loves is diagnosed with leukemia. This coming-of-age story about friendship and the turmoil of real life is a young adult version of The Bucket List meets A Walk to Remember.

Can eighteen things save Random’s life?

 RANDOM LEE is emotionally unprepared to deal with life’s hard truths after he’s diagnosed with leukemia towards the end of his junior year of high school. His childhood best friend, OLGA MURPHY, writes a prescription in the form of a list, titled, “18 Things,” helping him discover the will to live and helping her discover the beauty and strength within herself. “18 Things” consists of eighteen quests Random must accomplish before his eighteenth birthday. The two of them complete his mixture of outrageous, dangerous, and poignant tasks with humor and style, juxtaposed with serious questions about identity and tragedy. Through their journey, cancer unveils the most gripping question of all.

Is life, as Random’s name suggests, a random act without purpose, or does tragedy help give life meaning?

I’ve dealt with many adolescents as a full-time teacher for the past ten years. I’m a member of SCBWI, RWA-PRO, YA-RWA, and Southwest Florida Romance Writers. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society already agreed to review the book upon publication in its national newsletter. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Wishes,

Jamie Ayres

*left off usual contact info for blogfest

This month I’m participating in Deana Barnhart’s “Gearin’ Up to Get an Agent” Blogfest (to learn more visit http://deanabarnhartblogspot.com) This seemed like the perfect thing for me since I just completed my novel the first weekend in July:) This week’s assignment is to continue a story chain that started at 5am today and will continue until 8am tomorrow! Below you’ll find the link to the writer that posted before me, my continuation, then the writer that continued what I wrote. I encourage you to visit their blogs and support aspiring authors like myself:):):)

http://amberplante.blogspot.com/

My assignment: Expand on the post before yours, but add dialogue. The words I must use are: hissy fit, drawer, ghost.

The necklace was tucked away safely underneath her shirt, like all the memories surrounding her mother’s death were safely locked away in the desk drawer back home.

“That’s a nice pendant,” Roddern noted while they continued through the faerie forest.

“My mother gave it to me,” Dio answered, forcing a small faux smile as her insides winced at the painful emotions of the past. 

A sound loud as thunder echoed through the forest and a blue being popped into sight before their eyes. Dio screamed.

“Don’t have a hissy fit,” Roddern ordered. “It’s just one of the ghosts. They are helpers that show up at the forest when everything seems to be falling apart.”

Dio sucks in a deep breath, letting go of her panic and studying the ghost. He was a deep blue, and she thinks of her blue pillowcase back home. He looks just as inviting as her comfortable old pillow. Pillow. She laughs, thinking of the fluffy yellow pillow she left behind just moments before. Roddern is something else.

 http://vickybruere.blogspot.com/ (Read on here!)

I just finished my WIP (that’s writers language for Work In Progress) and need YOUR HELP with the title. The three I’m knocking around are: Random Lee Chosen, 18 Random Things, or 18 Things. Please read my short synopsis below before casting your vote:) Thanks!

I feel my 70,000-word novel, (Insert Catchy Title here), a coming-of-age story where a teen version of The Bucket List meets A Walk to Remember, will be the perfect match for your Young Adult list.

Can eighteen things save Random’s life?

Caught in limbo between adolescence and adulthood, RANDOM LEE is emotionally unprepared to deal with life’s hard truths and the prospect of death after he’s diagnosed with leukemia. His childhood best friend, OLGA MURPHY, writes a prescription in the form of a list, titled, “18 Things,” helping him discover the will to live. “18 Things” consists of eighteen quests Random must accomplish before his eighteenth birthday. The two complete his mixture of outrageous, dangerous, and poignant tasks with humor and style, juxtaposed with interferences from a smitten head cheerleader, and serious questions about identity, tragedy, and faith. Through their journey, cancer unveils the most gripping question of all.

 Is life, as Random’s name suggests, a random act without purpose, or does tragedy help give life meaning?

Which title could catch your eye the most when sitting on a bookshelf (or on Amazon these days)? Please, please, please leave your comment by Tuesday. That’s when I’m sending it out to agents. Thanks again. Happy 4th of July weekend!

My ten-year-old had to write a blog in her technology class for school. Below is what she came up with, and I was so impressed I told her to post it on mine:) Enjoy her book review!

I just read the world’s best book ever!!! Okay maybe it wasn’t the best but it was super awesome! It was The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I have every single one of his books. But this was definitely his best work! In this one Percy Jackson {son of Poseidon} goes missing! And a boy named Jason suddenly appears on a bus. He has no memory what-so-ever. But everyone knows who he is. To get his memory back from the Queen of the gods he goes on a quest to free her. But there is LOADS of trouble along the way. He and his friends almost become a tasty meal for a family of cyclops. Then Leo’s (Jason’s friend) dragon crashes into a fancy house. Just getting to the door is an impossible challenge from all the booby traps. But being in there is even worse than being outside. Inside a man turns Jason’s friends into gold by touching them. Then he gets caught in a deadly shopping mall. I know what you’re thinking, a deadly shopping mall? How can a shopping mall be deadly? But in the mall a lady “charm speaks” them, telling Jason to kill his best friend! But these aren’t even the worst challenges on the way! Will Jason ever rescue the queen of the gods and get his memory back? Read The Lost Hero to find out! {And don’t forget to comment on my first blog!} 

The Lost Hero

Let the Games begin!!! This week I read the conclusion to THE HUNGER GAMES series. And let me say: beware of the jabberwock! You’ll find this book much different from the other two in regards to Katniss and Peeta–Katniss isn’t the confident character we’ve come to know and love, and Peeta . . . well, I don’t wanna give anything away. Now I was kinda lucky in the respect I read the first 2 books in August after returning from my writer’s conference and hearing about the books in almost every workshop. Since the latest installment came out August 24th, I got it a few days later for my b-day & was very happy I didn’t have to wait long to read the last sequel. Mockingjay was similar to The Hunger Games and Catching Fire b/c all of them made me lay awake thinking about them, but this one for very different reasons. The first two installments made me think of Africa. I don’t know if anyone else made this connection, maybe it’s just me ( it often is;) Let me do a quick summary if you haven’t read these books (GASP, what’re u waiting 4?!) The setting is N. America in the future . . . but it’s not called the USA anymore. It’s the country of Panem with 13 outlying districts outside of the Capitol. You’re not free to leave your district, which are guarded by Capitol “Peacekeepers” and each district is responsible for a specific trade to support the Capitol (in Katniss’ District 12, they are miners). The farther you get from the Capitol, the poorer the districts become. B/c at one time in their history, there was a rebellion & the Capitol won, the President hosts a Hunger Game each year to remind the districts you don’t cross the government. Every kid aged between 12 and 18 has their names entered into their district’s lottery & one girl and one boy is chosen to compete in the annual Hunger Games, where the contestants must fight to the death in a Capitol designed arena and is aired on live TV 24/7. Only 1 is allowed to survive, until Katniss enters the arena (again, I don’t wanna give too much away).

So why did I think of Africa when reading the first 2 books? I couldn’t help comparing the poverty of the districts to how people live in Africa. Esp when Katniss sees the Capitol for the first time with their “painted faces” and weird hairdos. We sponsor a child through World Vision from Uganda and I imagined her reaction to seeing how we live if she were to ever visit probably being similar to that of Katniss Everdeen. We’d look like aliens from another planet. It makes me want to cry when I look at our dog & realize she lives better than Maculate (our sponsored  child). But this 3rd book is more a story of violence than of a love story (GO Team Peeta, although I love Gale too). Yes, the first two were more bloody than any YA book I’ve read before. But this one made me really ponder war, how coincidental since Prez. Obama declared the war in Iraq over this past week. I thought of what it means to volunteer for active duty and still be a pawn for our government and how when our soldiers return messed up, we don’t know what to do with them. They no longer fit in and we don’t want to be reminded of what they went through. I don’t think I ever cried harder when reading pgs. 312 and 347 since p. 637 of HP & the Deathly Hallows. Cheers to Suzanne Collins for writing a YA book that every adult will want to read, and will want to make you run out & hug a soldier or sponsor a starving child:)

My first blog! I’m soooooo excited (can you hear the ex-cheerleader coming out?)!!! Dunno if anybody will actually want to read this, but I’ll bribe as many people, vampires, werewolves, angels, as I can:):)

Me and NY Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong-bff's (HA! What can I say? I'm a writer, I make stuff up:) But my sister Misty is!

Anyways, the whole conference I sorta freaked b/c most of the top agents/editors don’t want young adult inspirational style novels . . . sure Nicholas Sparks can pull it off but an unpublished nobody debuting their first novel that they hope will become a NY Times Bestseller? Yeah, not so much. So I was thinking of how to rework it, and even figured out a way (a pretty good way if I do say so myself) to make it paranormal since that’s what everyone and their grandma is reading right now (mine included).

Me at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando for the Romance Writers of America Conference.

Then in the last session on Saturday (yes, I am hardcore. Wasn’t at the pool, and didn’t miss one workshop opportunity all 3 days), my epiphany came. In the workshop I was previously in, Writing the High-Concept Inspirational with writer Beth Pattillo, she said as a Christian, she became successful AFTER she took the profit motive for herself off the table and wrote the books God led her to write. Her words resonated with me as I sat in the next workshop: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict in the YA Novel. I thought, what are my own goals, motivation, and conflict right now with my book? My goal all along was to write the story of my heart, my motivation being what God has done and continues to do in my life, and my only conflict is all of a sudden losing sight of that admist hanging out with debut authors scoring huge 3-4 book deals for a series.

Me and my new fo real b.f.f, author Marisa Cleveland, she will be a NY Times bestseller soon!

God reminded me of Matthew 8 when he healed a man with leprosy. Jesus was already a big deal by that point, having just preached his Sermon on the Mount. Yet, this “untouchable” of society had the courage to approach him and say, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out and responded, “I am willing! Be clean!”  I thought of how I felt like an “untouchable” growing up, b/c of all the difficulties I went through (that’s a blog for another time), but Jesus healed my emotional wounds. That’s why I wrote Sarah’s Crossroads, to use the talent God gave me as a gift to the world to empower the next generation and if I’m not gonna do that, as Beth Pattillo put it, go get a part-time job for extra money b/c it’ll be a helluva lot easier! Ironically, we had Pastor Bob Hulett at our church as a guest speaker from PA today. Guess what his message was about? God writing our stories. HA! Coincidence or not? Once again, you decide:)

Comments, thoughts, questions, anyone??? Use the leave a comment link at the top of the page.