The Piece By Piece of Revision with Stephanie Shaw

Pre-published Picture Book Authors!

Please check out SCBWI Level Up Webinar: The Piece by Piece of Revision with Stephanie Shaw.

This is a really basic talk about doing lots of editing and engaging in critiques in what she calls 'revision readiness'. It's addressing/correcting the practice of 'one and done' writing.

Most seasoned writers know these things: 

*how to edit, 

*how to seek critiques, and 

*what to do with what they learn. 

But, many writers either forget or they are very new to writing and don't often do the tedious work prior to submission. 

Stephanie will also address working with an editor under these circumstances:

*if the writer receives an R&R before a contract is offered, and 

*if the writer is working under contract and being required to revise.

She can't tell anyone how to revise per se (we all have our own spaghetti sauce recipe), but she can guide you through the groundwork that will result in a manuscript that needs fewer revisions.

About Stephanie:

Several of Stephanie's books are in multiple printings. Some are delighting children not only in the US and UK, but also The Netherlands, Brazil, and Turkey. A three-time award winner for her contributions to Highlights for Kids, her books are consistently well-received by School Library Journal and Kirkus reviews. She has garnered recognition from Keystone to Reading, Mighty Girls Best Books, Indiana Young Hoosiers Awards, Listotic and EUREKA Excellence Excellence in Nonficiton. Her most recent book All By Myself (Peachtree) was a finalist for the 2024 Literary Arts Oregon Book Awards.

Simon Runs for Team Paws

 

Leadership author and educator Simon Cleveland (There Is No Box) will run the Chicago Marathon 2024 to raise awareness and funds for TEAM PAWS. Please consider investing in his journey. Even $5 can make a difference for this no-kill organization.
 
Here are two ways you can contribute and benefit from your donation:

 

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Critique-and-Zoom with Joyce and Marisa

 

Director of KidLit Joyce Sweeney and Literary Agent Marisa Cleveland are donating joint critiques with 30-minute Zoom sessions to the first 4 individuals to donate $25 or more toward Simon’s Team Paws fundraiser.

 

These four donors will be able to choose one of the following for their critique:

 

-   2 picture books up to 2,000 words combined

-   1 chapter book up to 5,000 words

-   1 middle grade partial up to 10,000 words

 

Zooms will be 30-minutes with both Joyce and Marisa on the zoom and can be a further discussion of the critique or anything else the donor wishes to discuss.

 

To donate, click HERE.

 

 

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Query Critique with Marisa

 

Literary Agent Marisa Cleveland is donating query critiques for individuals donating $5 or more toward Simon’s Team Paws fundraiser. Donors will receive a critique on their query letter for any project, with track changes and a paragraph detailing thoughts on the query and viability of the project.

 

To donate, click HERE.

 

OTHER DETAILS

 

Once you’ve made your donation, please email Marisa at marisa@theseymouragency.com to begin the conversation of collecting your gift. Please include the name you used for the donation, and which critique-and-zoom or critique you’d like.

 

 

ABOUT JOYCE AND MARISA

ABOUT JOYCE

Joyce Sweeney has been working in the Kidlit industry for four decades. First as an award-winning novelist, and soon after, leading invitation-only workshops for aspiring writers. Within the first two years, seven of Joyce’s students had obtained traditional publishing contracts and a second career was born. Joyce and their students decided that everyone who could secure a contract should get a special “Magic Bean” to mark the achievement.

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Continuing to publish their own work, Joyce expanded into weekend writing retreats, conducted with Jamie Morris, under the name NEXT LEVEL WORKHOPS. That led to ten years of online classes, taught by Joyce and produced by Cathy Castelli and CAFÉ CLASSES conducted in Fort Lauderdale.

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Using their contacts as an active SCBWI volunteer, Joyce continued to promote their students and help them find agents. The Magic Bean count continued to rise.

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By 2020, Nicole Resciniti, who is also Joyce’s agent, offered them the chance to take this lifetime of mentoring to the next level and become a literary agent. Joyce finally found their dream job as a kidlit agent and the Magic Bean count is currently 83 and hoping for 100! At the agency, Joyce began to help and coach other agents who wanted to move into the kidlit space, and continues to represent authors and illustrators of picture books, middle grades and graphic novels.  

 

Follow Joyce’s journey on Instagram: sweeney1217

 

ABOUT MARISA

Marisa Cleveland joined The Seymour Agency as an author in 2009. With more than two decades in the education and publishing industries, she is adamant about supporting the efforts toward the betterment of the human condition. In June 2020, she started signing her own authors who write in the children's, general fiction, and nonfiction spaces. 

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Marisa has been featured, participated, and moderated at book festivals, panels, and workshops on branding, communication, cultural agility, diversity, leadership development, and the state of the industry. 

 

Gulfshore Business and D’Latinos magazines honored Marisa with the Arts and Culture 2015 FACE Award, and in 2014, Gulfshore Business selected her as a “40 Under 40” honoree. In June 2015, her young adult novel hit the New York Times as part of an anthology, and her other publications include academic peer-reviewed articles, an academic book chapter, and fiction and nonfiction books. 

 

Follow Marisa’s journey on Instagram: thereisnobox

 

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Thank you for taking the time to be here and read this and consider investing in Simon’s charity run!

Pacing, Tension, and the Power of Sexy Milk by Hannah Kates

The most engaged I’ve ever seen a writing class was a course I taught on pacing and tension for the Write Hive Program. I’ve taught sessions in full corpse makeup and a bloodied, 1880-style ballgown, but I’ve never gotten the reactions, feedback, and retweets I received for that class, and I blame it all on one decisive factor:

Sexy milk.

Yes, sexy milk. The point I was trying to make is that what you say doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you say it (the same point I make without a hint of sarcasm, thank you very much, in my article, What You Say Probably Doesn’t Matter). Using voice, strategic descriptions, and purposeful cadence, you can make even the most mundane actions tense and/or “udderly” salacious:

“Mm.” She lifted the crystalline glass, her long, dark fingernails tinkling against the dainty embossments. The pucker of her pout spoke girlish innocence, but her side-eye told a different story.

She paused for a moment, the glass halfway to her perfectly pursed mouth. “If only I had a cookie.”

She licked her lips slowly—top, then bottom. Her green eyes blazed. An electric tremble wracked my shoulders.

With a nod of her chin, she tipped back the drink. Every swallow, every gulp, chased ripples down the supple skin of her neck.

Cold. Creamy. Delicious.

In that moment, I swore I could taste every drop.

Is this scene cheesy? Of course. Contrived, violet, and downright ridiculous? Absolutely. But I believe this example stuck with my students not only due to the silliness, but also because it illustrates the power of content-level tension.

What’s content-level tension? Well… it’s tension on the content editing level. That is, style, prose, rhythm—how you convey a message rather than simply the message itself.

While reading something engrossing, have you ever realized your heart was pounding? Your hands were sweating? Outside noises came distant and muffled, as if garbling at you from underwater? Has a book ever made you sigh? Cry? Scream or hurl something across the living room? (Not that I’d ever know what that’s like.)

As a voracious horror reader and a middle grade horror author, I’m fascinated when writers suspend my belief and commandeer my autonomic stress responses. It takes great skill to craft a written experience. Notice, I didn’t say “story”—I said experience.

Good writing isn’t just telling a story. It’s crafting an experience.

Skillful horror authors create tension at the content level by mirroring our autonomic fear responses back to us. How are they able to do this?

·  Shorter, staccato sentences that both accelerate the pace and mimic our quickening pulses

·  Narrowed, focused points of view (POV)—the same sensory contraction we experience in a fight, flight, or freeze response

·  Panicked, run-on inner monologues that “startle” abruptly to external stimuli

By no means is this an exhaustive list, and these principles don’t just apply to horror. In the case of sexy milk, we don’t have to say that our narrator is bewitched by the milk drinker. We experience their ensorcellment through:

·  Tunnel vision POV

·  Winding, violet descriptions of the subject of our narrator’s fascination

·  Shorter, reactionary sentences when the milk drinker drinks milk—as if our narrator’s lizard brain is locked on her every move

Tension isn’t about what we write. It’s about harnessing our readers’ emotions and serving them straight back.

So, yes. Sexy milk has been a memorable, if not unexpected teaching tool on pacing and content-level tension. Nearly five years later, I still find it particularly amoosing.

I swear, that’s my last cow joke.

And I’ll milk it for all it’s worth.

 

ABOUT HANNAH KATES

Hannah Kates is an author, editor, and best-selling ghostwriter who also writes about ghosts. Ever since ending her short career as a pirate hunter/swordswoman, she’s moonlighted in a variety of vocations, including copywriter, character actress, governess in the Swiss Alps, and ghost tour guide in America’s most haunted mansion.