I'm Reading You! (Warning from a YA Biographer)

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TraceyB
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Joined: January 14th, 2010, 4:51 pm
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I'm Reading You! (Warning from a YA Biographer)

Post by TraceyB » January 14th, 2010, 7:32 pm

I write biographies of YA authors. That means that I get paid to read all of your books. But that’s not the best stuff I read from you YA writers. The best stuff is in your interviews. Man, you sure reveal a lot about yourselves in interviews, and I’m not talking about the things that you actually say.

In all good books, what a character says needs to reveal two things: what’s happening in the moment, and something true about themselves. The reason it’s in all good books is because it’s true in real life, and that’s what I look for when I read your interviews, your blogs, and yes, even your tweets. As the biographer, readers don’t care what I have to say. They want to hear from you, so I use quotes. Like when Stephenie Meyer says, “Oh, other writers are going to hate me,” and I let her vulnerability sink in, as the last line of a chapter.

The second part of what I do is reveal the tension. In fiction, you get to create tension, but in a biography, you have to find it. A lot of biographers get into trouble for ratcheting up tension that isn’t really there. I don’t do that. 1) I’m Catholic. 2) The Pope and my mother scare me. And 3) I believe in Karma. Fortunately the kind of tension I’ve come across in YA authors happens mainly in your childhoods. Madeleine L’Engle’s mother and her teacher nearly came to blows over a poem that L’Engle’s teacher swore the young author could never write.

I sometimes worry though what someone might reveal in my biography. See, my first published work was a well-received YA novel, but after it was published I decided to stay home with my two very young children. Since no one pays you to write that second novel, and I had a mean shoe-addiction… I mean… I had to feed those children, I turned to non-fiction. And though freelance has sucked up nearly all my fiction-writing time, I’ve found that I like it. And I like blogging. And tweeting. And I don’t always watch what comes out of my fingertips. And because I have every intention of continuing with a fiction career, my own words might come back to haunt me in a biography someday.

But don’t worry about me. Nuh uh. Worry about you. Because if you get famous, honey, I’m going to pore over everything you put out there so that your readers can get a sense of the real, true you.

So watch out. I’m reading.

TraceyB
Posts: 2
Joined: January 14th, 2010, 4:51 pm
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Re: I'm Reading You! (Warning from a YA Biographer)

Post by TraceyB » January 15th, 2010, 9:23 am

Whew! I'm so glad this post thingy actually worked.

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