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The MONSTER guide to middle grade and YA genres and subgenres
 1024 683 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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What genre is your book? Does it matter? What does genre mean? Is it even a word? Genre, genre – it’s starting to sound meaningless to me now so let’s move on before my brain explodes. Middle grade (aimed at children around 8-12) and young adult aren’t genres, they’re audiences. I feel a little sad…

How old should your main character be?
 1024 683 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Thanks for joining me, YA genre authors! Next up in my YA Fundamentals series is character age, something that trips up a lot of my clients. Does it really matter how old your main character is? Yes! For a start, your protagonist’s age is one of the key factors that tells readers your book is…

Which age group is YA for?
 1024 683 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Oh hey, YA authors! Are you struggling to work out the difference between middle grade and YA, or between YA and adult? Wondering what mistakes you need to avoid if you don’t want to turn agents off or disappoint readers? You’ve come to the right place! In this ‘YA Fundamentals’ series I’m going to be…

Analysing The Tale of the Lonely Ghost
 1024 684 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Hi, horror fans! I’m really excited about this blog series and I hope you will be too. I was a big fan of Are You Afraid of the Dark? as a child; I even analysed the opening credits in great detail for my media studies GCSE coursework. For anybody who hasn’t seen AYAOTD? before, the show’s…

Wolf School with Constance and Merricat: Introduction
 1024 576 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Ah-wooooooooooooooooooooooo. Hello, and welcome to Wolf School with Constance and Merricat, your Wolves in Residence. We’re so excited to– That’s Professor Merricat, actually.  You are not a professor, Merricat. I’m not calling you that. But I’m a teacher!  No you’re not. We’re just playing. Stop being so silly. Okay, fine. But I’m in charge of writing…

Sweet dreams! Should your middle grade horror have a happy ending?
 1024 576 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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I’m often asked whether children’s horror novels should end on a cheerful note with the threat fully defused, giving young readers the closure they need to drift off happily to sleep. In adult horror fiction and film, there’s no guarantee things will turn out well for the protagonist. And even if the final girl does…

You've finished your first draft – let's celebrate!
You’ve finished the first draft of your MG or YA book! Now what?
 1024 578 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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1. Party like it’s 2020! You’ve written a novel – you rock! This is such an enormous achievement and you deserve a big night out on the town, or at least a really good milkshake from one of those places that blend up Twixes and Terry’s Chocolate Orange bars. Pat yourself on the back, do…

Children’s book writing prompt lucky dip #1
 1024 576 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Over the course of my Novel Writing MA, I produced thousands of words of creative writing in response to weekly assignments, all of which were workshopped and critiqued by tutors and classmates. I invented characters, scenarios and locations every day and thought hey, these ideas are just oozing out of me! What’s writer’s block again?…

How to write a creepy graveyard in middle grade or YA
 1024 683 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Hi there, horror fans! Not much beats the eerie atmosphere of an empty cemetery in the middle of the night, am I right? They’re dark and shadowy, spookily silent and totally empty – you hope! Everybody knows cemeteries are a breeding ground for ghosts seeking closure (you did know that, right?) but they can still…