Writing and Selling the YA Novel (14 page)

his football coach. You could now write two scenes—one that takes place in a poor inner-city school where football is barely funded and therefore the coach is desperate for every player he can get, and another that takes place in a rich suburban environment where the football team always has the best, cleanest, newest equipment and the role of football player is reserved for the school's elite. You could choose a modern time period in which homosexuality is not as hidden as it was in the past, or you could choose to set the scene in the 1950s when it was rarely acknowledged.

Each choice will lead to different ramifications for your character and plot. Will your main character have to fight hard for a spot on the team? How does he feel about his crush on the coach? Will the tone of the story be tragic or comic?

See how developing different settings can enhance your writing and shed new light on your characters and the choices they make.

When I was in school, study hall was seldom an occasion for actual studying. More often than not it was a time to pass notes, talk with friends, or make some excuse to skip out for makeup gym classes. Often it was when I got my homework done for the class ahead if I hadn't done it the night before. Still, there were times—like just before a big test—that studying really
did
happen, and we're going to pretend this is one of those times.

Imagine the test you're about to take is on narrative voice and points of view.

Why devote an entire chapter to voice? Well, for years YA novels have been known for their unique narrative voices and teenage perspectives. Regardless of whether these characteristics are true for
every
teen novel, voice and point of view are worth looking into and understanding fully. When used well, both can distinguish your work, allowing you to capture characters, events, and settings in a way that's integral to your narrator's way of seeing her world. Developing a convincing teen voice for your characters takes a lot of time, patience, and practice, but fortunately we've got a whole period devoted to studying.

WHAT IS NARRATIVE VOICE?
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Every person, fictional or real, has a way of speaking that is uniquely his own. We touched upon voice in English class when we discussed a character's speech as something that can distinguish her from another person. Our word choices and speech patterns reveal who we are, where we're from, and what we're thinking. They can make us interesting or dull, aggravating or sympathetic.

The same is true for narrative voice. Your narrator can be revealed by what he chooses to say and how he says it. When one of your characters is telling the story, narrative voice can be a form of character development. Other times, the narrator might be more removed—someone outside the story looking in. Her voice might be very different from that of the characters she's describing. The narrator might be a teen who is judgmental or reflective. He might also be an adult looking back on his youth—the voice of experience commenting on his past journey.

Narrative voices have distinctive speech patterns and tones, as well. They can be authoritative or questioning, and this can involve the reader, drawing her in, or distance the reader, keeping her at arm's length. The narrator can tell the story from the past or present, and at times he might even be imagining, or speaking from, the future. There can be multiple narrators for the same story, and they can each

relate the same events from different perspectives, or they can slowly advance the plot by adding pieces of the story that only they know.

When it comes to narrative voice, your options are endless. You'll want to be aware of them, but don't let the scope of the choices overwhelm you. Stripped down to its most basic, what a narrative voice needs to establish is:

• who is telling the story

• what her relationship is to the events unfolding

For an easy frame of reference, think of your friends and family. How would each of them tell other people about the same event? Do you have an aunt who makes everything sound hilarious, always sprinkling jokes into monologues worthy of a comedy club? Do you have a friend who turns everything into high drama? Or a sister who can make any situation seem primed for romance? What about that cousin who never reveals any emotion, always leaving you to guess what's really going on inside his head?

That's the "who" of narrative voice. Depending on who the narrator is, she brings her own personal style to the telling of the story.

Here's an example of an exceptional narrative voice from
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky. Charlie tells the story in a series of letters to an anonymous friend, and this is how it begins:

Dear friend,

I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at the party even though you could have. Please don't try to figure out who she is, because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don't want you to do

that. I will call people by different names or generic names because I don't want you to find me. I didn't enclose a return address for the same
reason. I mean
nothing bad by this. Honest.

I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.

I think you of all people would understand that because I think that you of all people are alive and appreciate what that means. At least, I hope you do because other people look to you for strength and friendship, and it's that simple. At least that's what I've heard.

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

Do you have an immediate sense of Charlie's character even though he's trying to hide his identity? The narrative voice is so effective that even while you know nothing of what Charlie looks like, where he's from, how old he is, or who he's addressing, you understand certain key parts of his personality, such as his vulnerability and idealism, and his intense longing for a world that's fair and just.

Here's another example of narrative voice in action from Justina Chen Headley's
Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies):

Abe got eighty percent of the Mama-looking genes in our family; I got the dregs. There is no mistaking whose son Abe is with his jet-black hair, high cheekbones, and flat rice cake of a butt. Take a look at any

Ho family picture and guess which one doesn't look like the others? Hint: the gawky girl with brownish hair and large eyes with a natural fold that Korean girls have surgically created. It's as if God cruised through one of those Chinese fast-food buffets and bought Abe the full meal deal so he can pass for Mama's beloved son. When it came to my turn, all that was left was one of those soggy egg rolls that doesn't qualify as real Chinese food.

This is an entirely different character, and her voice is accordingly unique. She sees the world and relates to the reader in a wholly different manner. For Patty Ho, how she looks and where she comes from are essential to her identity.

Narrators are as diverse as real people, and the information they decide to hide or impart is one way we get to know them. The better we know them, the more easily we can interpret the action of the story because we understand how they see the world and how they relate to events in the story. Ask yourself about your narrator's relationship to the action.

• Is he an observer?

• Is he a participant?

• Is he telling us something he only heard about or imagined?

Each of these choices lends to or detracts from his credibility, and each choice will change the way we understand what's taking place.

Remember that aunt who makes everything sound hilarious? Well, maybe the family fight wouldn't have been so funny if she'd been directly involved in it. If you know her well, you would probably listen to her story knowing it wasn't really the laugh riot she's making

it out to be. Perhaps your sister can conjure up a romantic glow for every occasion in part because she chooses to use her imagination to enhance reality. Maybe she relates more of what she hears from others than what she experiences herself, and since you understand where she's coming from, you can see through the rosy haze to the loneliness underneath.

Here's one more example of narrative voice from one of the masters of narration, Robert Cormier. Watch how he puts his own unique spin on something very familiar—a football team tryout—in his classic
The Chocolate War.

They murdered him.

As he turned to take the ball, a dam burst against the side of his head and a hand grenade shattered his stomach. Engulfed by nausea, he pitched toward the grass. His mouth encountered gravel, and he spit frantically, afraid that some of his teeth had been knocked out. Rising to his feet he saw the field through drifting gauze but held on until everything settled into place, like a lens focusing, making the world sharp again, with edges.

The second play called for a pass. Fading back, he picked up a decent block and cocked his arm, searching for a receiver—maybe the tall kid they called The Goober. Suddenly he was caught from behind and whirled violently, a toy boat caught in a whirlpool. Landing on his knees, hugging the ball, he urged himself to ignore the pain that gripped his groin, knowing that it was important to betray no sign of distress,

remembering The Goober's advice, "Coach is testing you, testing, and he's looking for guts."

Would another narrator tell this story differently? You bet. This is a narrator who is watching and judging. He pulls no punches, right from the very first line, and he sees murder lurking in something you and I would accept as commonplace.

This is the power of narrative voice—to show us the world through someone else's eyes. Someone who is, perhaps, completely unlike us. Narrators can disappear from the page, or they can "become" the story. Regardless, it's important to establish the tone and the narrator's relationship to the action right from the first page of your book and to be consistent with that choice throughout your novel.

POINT OF VIEW
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To learn how to establish a narrator's relationship to events, let's take a closer look at point of view. If narrative voice is how a narrator tells the story in terms of tone and emotion, point of view is the perspective from which she tells it. The two go hand in hand. Perspective will shape tone, and tone will shape perspective.

The same two questions above apply here as well. Who is telling the story, and what is his relationship to the unfolding events? The answer can come in several forms.

• First person:
The narrator is an eyewitness to events; she tells the story from her own perspective, using the "I" voice.

• Second person:
You are the star of the show, and the narrator's role is to relate what "you" are doing and saying, using the "you" voice.

• Third person:
The narrator is telling about something that happened to someone else, using the "he/she" voice.

• Omniscient:
The narrator is godlike, unlimited in his ability to know what many characters are thinking and doing.

In addition to point of view, there's also the issue of tense—is the narrator telling the story using past, present, or future tense?

• Past tense:
Events have already happened, and the narrator is looking back on them.

• Present:
Events are presented as if they are happening now.

• Future:
The narrator exists in the present, but events are happening in the imagined future

Just using these two very short lists, you can probably guess which points of view and which tenses are used more frequently and which ones might present difficulties. Anyone want to tackle second person, future tense? Probably not. You'll find some narrative techniques lend themselves more easily to a natural, rhythmic writing style. Still, every story is different, and you never know when you'll want to try a point of view you've never used before, so it's worth exploring all of your options in more depth.