A Quiet Novel...

As I was writing my first novel, the professional editor I was working with explained that my manuscript would be considered a quiet novel. Although I understood what she said, I was still confident in my story's underlining theme as I plugged along in my learning, processing information, rewriting, and revising process. After all, some of my favorite contemporary books are quiet, but those stories speak loudly in the area of human experience.

For example, I loved Rules by Cynthia Lord and Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson. The main characters perspective is shaped around how they interact with another character. In Rules, the main character is stuck looking after her autistic brother when all she longs for is a friend. In Feathers, the main character Frannie observes the treatment of a new boy in school whose dubbed "Jesus Boy" because his skin color is lighter than the other children at her school. Family plays an important role in both of these stories. Is it because theses stories are for a middle grade audience?

 Here is a snippet of a recent rejection: 

I didn't get a clear sense of stakes or goals for the main character. I feel that 33k is very low for YA. I have found that authors who can double that word count have a strong plot, stakes and goals for their main character. 

In Jacqueline Woodson's YA novels, The Dear One or Behind You, the plot and stakes aren't loud and the goals reside with the family relationship and human experience. Even Sarah Zarr's Story of a Girl or Rainbow Rowell's Elenor and Park (although these word counts are higher) share the plight of children dealing with dysfunctional family relationships.

At the last five SCBWI conferences I've attended, the feedback on my story has been excellent and I've been picked as editor or Agents' choice at each one of them. The critique advise given is... make your character fifteen, or this story needs to be YA. So that's what I did. I rewrote my story line for a slightly older audience, but now in my submissions the rejections emphasize the quietness of my theme.

My current plot and theme are strong. Adding words or chapters won't be particularly hard, but the problem is the same. My main character lives with a mentally ill mother who hasn't been properly diagnosed as having manic depressive episodes. Her whole life she's had to be the adult, appeasing a mother whose mood swings create chaos within the family dynamics. How is a fifteen-year-old girl supposed to act? Most likely in a passive-aggressive way. Especially when her father uses business trips to get out of the house and her seventeen-year-old brother comes home drunk or gets high at school.  Wouldn't she feel like she's crazy anytime she interprets her behavior is becoming like her mother whenever things are out of her control?

It's time to go back to the drawing board. Do I fork out the dough and hire another professional editor to take a look at my story line?  Or tuck my manuscript in a drawer for a while, like Stephen King did with Carrie, and forge on with my current novel?

The stakes are higher in my new novel and the plot is definitely loud... death of parents leads to nineteen-year-old sister trying to keep fifteen-year-old sister out of foster care. When she can't make enough money as a waitress, she turns to stripping. After a co-worker dies on stage from a drug overdose, she chooses surrogate parenting for a homosexual couple, which enrages the religious members in her small, Southern town. But are the stakes too loud or too controversial? Someone from a Dallas critique group thought so when he got up and left the room during my synopsis.