Middle Grade Ninja Episode 04: Author Darby Karchut

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Author Darby Karchut and I discuss her new middle grade novel, Del Toro Moon, as well as her advice for writers and thoughts and writing and publishing in general. We also chat a bit about our mutual love for author Mike Mullin. Late in the show, there are some slight technical issues with the video, but the audio is continuous and this was an amazing conversation I really enjoyed.

Makes sure you check out Darby's guest post, Be Like Michelangelo, as well as her original interview when she faced the 7 Questions.

And now, enjoy the fourth episode of Middle Grade Ninja:

Darby Karchut is a multi-award winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter.  A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. When not dodging death by Colorado, Darby is busy at her writing desk. Her books include the best selling middle grade series: THE ADVENTURES OF FINN MacCULLEN. Best thing ever: her YA debut novel, GRIFFIN RISING, has been optioned for film. Her latest book, DEL TORO MOON, releases October 2 from Owl Hollow Press. Visit the author at www.darbykarchut.com

“Ride hard, swing hard, and take out as many of those creepy critters as you can.”

Twelve year old Matt Del Toro is the greenest greenhorn in his family’s centuries-old business: riding down and destroying wolf-like monsters, known as skinners. Now, with those creatures multiplying, both in number and ferocity, Matt must saddle up and match his father’s skills at monster whacking. Odds of doing that? Yeah, about a trillion to one. Because Matt’s father is the legendary Javier Del Toro—hunter, scholar, and a true caballero: a gentleman of the horse.

Luckily, Matt has twelve hundred pounds of backup in his best friend—El Cid, an Andalusian war stallion with the ability of human speech, more fighting savvy than a medieval knight, and a heart as big and steadfast as the Rocky Mountains.

Serious horse power.

Those skinners don’t stand a chance. 

DarbyKarchut.com  

GUEST POST: "Be Like Michelangelo" by Darby Karchut

As part of the Mentor Program of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrations ( https://rmc.scbwi.org/mentor-program/ ), I’ve had the straight up delight of working one-on-one with aspiring writers on their manuscripts. The six-month long program is a flurry of reading and talking and emailing and editing and revising and laughing and groaning and reading some more. I thought I’d offer some of the tips I shared with my SCBWI protégées.

• Character: Get this right and the rest will follow. In my opinion, character is the heart and soul of story telling. Kids and teens fall in love with characters, not plots nor settings nor themes. Kevin Hearne, author of the Iron Druid Chronicles, once said, “People don’t dress up for cons or Halloween as your plot. They dress up as your characters.” And, by the way, when writing kid lit, especially with your first book, too few characters are better than too many characters.

• Dialogue: Most kids and teens talk in short bursts, not long explanations (unless they’re Hermione). They often interrupt others, which is a great way to keep the tension building, especially if one speaker is desperate to impart information, and he/she keeps getting stopped. Also, kids and teens mispronounce words or use the wrong word. Let ‘em mess up when they speak.

• World-building: If you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, think about including the eight elements, or universals, found in every human culture. Those elements are: language, history, social groups, government, religion, economy, arts and crafts, and daily life (food, clothing, shelter). Even if you’re creating an entirely new fantastical world, by embedding these eight elements, it gives your story extra intensity and reality. And, no, you don’t need to go into depth on every element. Take economy, for example. Just a mention or two of how your character obtains what he/she needs (trade and barter, jobs, a trust fund, etc.) scattered throughout your story will suffice. History is my favorite element to work with, because it can explain so many whys and hows. Anyway, play around with these elements—see what you can come up with. 

• Read Aloud: When it comes time to edit, try reading your manuscript aloud. This is a powerful tool to help refine your sentence structures, catch awkward dialogue, and find over-used words. Trust me on it. I’m the person who discovered her protagonist “turned” about 2,847 times in a single manuscript. Sheesh. The hours it takes to do this will be well worth it. It takes me about ten days to two weeks to read a 60,000 word manuscript, mainly because my voice gives out. But you might fly through quicker depending on the toughness of your throat.

• Manuscript Length for Middle Grade: Word count is not a hard and fast rule, but with your first book, try to stay somewhat close to industry standards. And, yeah, you’ll see different numbers depending on the source, but these are pretty accurate. Your mileage may vary:

           Contemporary Middle Grade:            25,000-60,000            Sweet spot: 30,000-45,000

           Fantasy/Sci Fi Middle Grade:            35,000-75,000            Sweet spot: 45,000-65,000

• Middle Grade ≠ Middle School: Here’s the latest break-down of age/genre per the publishing world. Take these numbers with a huge grain of salt:

                  Picture books                   Infants/early readers

                  Chapter books                  6 - 8 year olds            

                  Middle Grade books        9 - 12 year olds

                  Tween books                   12 -14 year olds         

                  Young Adult books         14 and older  

• Current State of the Kid Lit World:  The tectonic shift toward more and authentic diversity (and diversity within diversity) in both books and authors is a desperately needed evolution. It’s not a trend or the genre de jour. While there’s been some intense discussions on social media around diversity in books (#wndb) and who is telling the story (#ownvoices), it is much needed conversation for the good of the Cause. The Cause being that “…the literature of this country should reflect the children of this country.”

Want to know something crazy? I still find myself going back to these tips all the time. Each new book is an opportunity to learn how much I don’t know about story telling, which is a Very Good Thing. I hope I never arrive at the I-know-it-all stage. No, I want to be like Michelangelo, who at the age of 87, declared: Ancora imparo. “I am still learning.”

May we all.

Darby Karchut is a multi-award winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter.  A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. When not dodging death by Colorado, Darby is busy at her writing desk. Her books include the best selling middle grade series: THE ADVENTURES OF FINN MacCULLEN. Best thing ever: her YA debut novel, GRIFFIN RISING, has been optioned for film. Her latest book, DEL TORO MOON, releases October 2 from Owl Hollow Press. Visit the author at www.darbykarchut.com

Click here to see her face the 7 Questions.

“Ride hard, swing hard, and take out as many of those creepy critters as you can.”

Twelve year old Matt Del Toro is the greenest greenhorn in his family’s centuries-old business: riding down and destroying wolf-like monsters, known as skinners. Now, with those creatures multiplying, both in number and ferocity, Matt must saddle up and match his father’s skills at monster whacking. Odds of doing that? Yeah, about a trillion to one. Because Matt’s father is the legendary Javier Del Toro—hunter, scholar, and a true caballero: a gentleman of the horse.

Luckily, Matt has twelve hundred pounds of backup in his best friend—El Cid, an Andalusian war stallion with the ability of human speech, more fighting savvy than a medieval knight, and a heart as big and steadfast as the Rocky Mountains.

Serious horse power.

Those skinners don’t stand a chance. 

www.darbykarchut.com  

7 Questions For: Author Darby Karchut

All her life, the archetypal hero and his journey have enthralled Darby Karchut. A native of New Mexico, Darby grew up in a family that venerated books and she spent her childhood devouring one fantasy novel after another. Fascinated by mythologies from around the world, she attended the University of New Mexico, graduating with a degree in anthropology. After moving to Colorado, she then earned a Master’s in education and became a social studies teacher.

Drawing from her extensive knowledge of world cultures, she blends ancient myths with modern urban life to write stories that relate to young teens today.

Darby is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Pikes Peak Writers Guild. She lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado with her husband, where she still teaches at a local junior high school. She enjoys running, biking, and skiing the Rocky Mountains in all types of weather.

Griffin Rising is her first novel. She is currently working on the next books in the series, Griffin's Fire (April 2012) and Griffin's Storm (December 2012). Her middle grade novel, Finn Finnegan, will be released March 2013 from Spencer Hill Press. The next book in the Finnegan series, Gideon's Spear, will be released from Spencer Hill Press in February 2014.

Click here to read my review of Finn Finnegan

And now Darby Karchut faces the 7 Questions 

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

The Lord of the Rings, the Prydain Chronicles, the Ranger’s Apprentice series. In that order.

Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

Since I teach full time (7th grade social studies – go Thunderbirds!), I try to write two or three hours each evening and another fifteen minutes at lunch. On weekends, holidays, and summer, I probably triple that amount. As far as reading goes, I usually read for about an hour in bed right before I go to sleep. I have not watched television in years. Except Game of Thrones. And, well, Broncos football games. Of course, book promotion and editing often steals those hours. My writing time is incredibly precious to me right now. I’m so fortunate to have a husband who supports me in my endeavors. (Wes, if you're reading this – I love you, man!)

Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

I had been keeping my eye on Spencer Hill Press for months – they are only open for submission for a few weeks each year. I really wanted to be with them because they are one of the hottest YA publishers around. But since they don’t publish middle grade, I hesitated. Finally, at the end of 2011 when they re-opened for submission, I sent them Finn Finnegan on a what the heck–the worse they can do is say no whim.

Spencer Hill Press said yes! Luck of the Irish, don’t you know.

Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you? 

Taught. I think all the reading I’ve done throughout my life is why I started writing. There’s an old expression that you read and you read, gorging yourself on the written word, until one day, you vomit up a book. That’s totally me. I work at improving my craft by reading really great books by really great writers, then applying what I learn to my own writing. My husband calls it Karchut University.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

My favorite thing about writing is revising. I love polishing the rough draft over and over until it shines. My least favorite thing about writing is the first draft. Talk about a bloodletting. It’s probably because I edit as I write, which slows the flow, but I can’t stand to write sloppy. Lawrence Block, the author of Telling Lies for Fun and Profit (one of the classics how-to-write books) cautions writers from writing sloppy first drafts because we are teaching ourselves to write badly. That advice works for me and fits my OCD personality. It may not work for others.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

There are two pieces of advice I’ve heard from many authors that I’ve always followed:

A. Read. Read everything. Read all the time. Read the genre you write. Read other genres.

B. Write the books you like to read. I love boy books featuring heroic masters and apprentices, so that’s what I write. I suck at writing females; although rumor has it I am one.

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

I would love to have tea with The Great One: J.R.R. Tolkien. I would love to listen to him ramble on about Middle-earth. Maybe have him teach me a few words of Old English. Or Norse. Norse would be cool. And we could draw maps. I’d bring the colored pencils!

www.darbykarchut.com