I've been racking my brains for a decent plot for the Delacorte Yearling contest I mentioned last Friday. My kiddo is just starting books that would be considered MG (middle grade, ages 8-12) and I'm fairly familiar with the books available. I've read many of them, BUT the contest stipulates 96-160 typewritten pages, 12-point font. Of course, I can manipulate the font to reach the minimum or maximum requirement by simply changing it from courier to Times. And by my rough calculations that runs around 25K-40K words. Not a problem. If I could come up with a story in the next week or two, I could feasibly write this amount by the deadline of June 30, 2009.
The problem arises because . . . I GOT NOTHING by the way of plot!
This is driving me crazy!! Usually, I have too much plot, but now, I can't think of anything! AARRGGHH!! The really good MG stories have the main plot and a subplot or something that can link it into a series.
...and there are A LOT of good series all ready invented! The Magic Tree house books come to mind, though they are far less than the required word count. I need to come up with a story that is either contemporary or historical. They don't specifically say NO FANTASY, but I'm guessing the fantasy had better be a subplot or not at all if you look at the list of previous winners.
I'll take any, and all suggestions for a story plot. Oh, and my daughter says there has to be a sad part near the end (black moment, anyone?) because all chapter books have them. ;-)
Halp!
And Write On!
I got nuttin' for ya. :(
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need more coffee...
Thanks for trying, Karin!
ReplyDeleteI started writing and have 3 pages written. Hopefully, I'll have 6-10pages by the time I get my kiddo!
magolla, did you ever finish and submit this middle grade manuscript to the contest?
ReplyDeleteYep, I sure did, momofnine. :-)
ReplyDeleteToo cool--I'm the youngest of nine! I still don't know how my mom kept her sanity!
I finished the rough draft about May 28th. I had a lot of editing to do, since I started the story in the mom's third person point of view and I had to switch to eleven-year-old Rhee's first person POV.
By the time I finished my edits and tweaks, I submitted it ON the deadline of June 30th.
I've heard rumors that the rejections have started arriving in the mail. I expect I'll get mine in the next week or so. I enjoyed the challenge of finishing this project, but I don't have a hope that it won--it just isn't the style of their previous winners.
I did start a new story with this same character, I'm about 10,000 words into it, but I'm still puzzling out some of the plot so I took a short break from this story to work on a romantic suspense.
Thanks for asking!