I’m currently putting together a proposal for the following
book. It is meant to be an essential book for my second year undergraduate
module Writing Novels for Young People. I did send a proposal to one publisher some
time ago but never heard back. I actually suspect something went wrong with the
post. Now I’ve prepared it for another and it’s almost ready to send off. I just
want to check it once more and then it will be on its way. You can’t just recycle
book proposals. You have to adapt them slightly to the requirements of each publisher.
The one I’m currently sending to suggests that your try it
out on colleagues and students. In a sense
I have tried it on students: it follows my module very closely. Now, though it
occurs to me that I should write it anyway. It will be useful to next year’s
students and as I don’t teach them until semester two I have plenty of time to
get ahead. The text book will probably take on a life of its own as I do this
and hopefully develop organically. Even if the book hasn’t found a publisher by
then it still stands the chance of being a valuable resource.
Below is a very rough outline. Let me know what you think.
Chapter 1 The Young
Adult Protagonist
Chapter 2 Story
Theory
Chapter 3 The Story
of Adolescence
Chapter 4 Pushing
Boundaries
Chapter 5 Achieving
Pace
Chapter 6 Writing
Synopses
Chapter 7 No Happy Ever-After and No Author Control
Chapter 8 The
Multi-genred and Multi-themed Young Adult Novels
Chapter 9 Developing
Character Closeness in the Young Adult Novel
Chapter 10 Creating a Sense of Space and Time
Chapter 11 Showing, not telling
Chapter 12 Dialogue
Chapter 13 Editing work
Appendix 1 Reading
as a Writer
Appendix 2 The Writer’s Journal
Appendix 3 Point of View
Appendix 4 Writing advice,
critique groups, workshops and writing buddies
Appendix 5 Networking and
submitting
