Victoria Hanley gives solid advice for writers young and old

Young adult author, Victoria Hanley didn’t leave anyone out when she decided to share her wisdom on writing with other writers in two separate books: Seize the Story: A Handbook for Teens Who Like to Write and Wild Ink: How to Write Fiction for Young Adults. Whether you are a beginning writer or have a novel almost finished, these books serve as a valuable references, not only as a layout of the basics of creative writing, but also as a introduction to the world of publishing.

Wild Ink is aimed toward authors who wish to break in to the young adult genre with their writing, but it is more about style than form. It explains how writing for young adults differs from the adult genres and the elements that are unique to it, with a whole chapter with writing exercises to aide in discovering your writing voice. This book walks you through the publishing process, step by step. It talks about obstacles that writers might be faced with and offers resources to help get you started, and tips for improving your writing. It goes on to discuss the submission process, including how to find literary agencies that might be a match for your book, writing queries and synopsis, making an oral pitch for you work, multiple submissions and agent advice. The ins and outs of publishing are discussed so that authors new to this process can know what to expect; contracts and money, different types of editing and how they are used, cover design, formatting, blurb writing, galleys, advance reading copies, marketing, what differences the size of the publishing house might make, as well as editor advice. There is a chapter on self-publishing that not only discusses it, but provides advice from authors that have self-published before. The final chapter is filled with words of wisdom from nineteen authors of young adult fiction.
 

Seize the Story is geared toward adolescent writers, taking them through the writing process from free writing to first draft, to polishing the story.  In between, elements of character development, what makes a good beginning, settings, plot, dialog, conflicts , point of view and showing verses telling are discussed in depth.  Each chapter includes well thought out writing exercises to help get the creative juices flowing, and advise from sixteen popular young adult authors is featured.  This book has all the instruction and advice a young writers could hope for and would be a wonderful tool to give young people a good, solid start in writing.

Both books, as well as Hanley's works of juvenille fiction are available on Amazon