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Originally Posted by Commonmind  First of all, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.
I also have a few questions of my own: Was there any time while writing YA fiction that you were unsure if the work was going to suit your audience? And if so, how did you relieve those concerns - handed the manuscript to a few people within the targeted age group, referenced other material in the genre, kept a certain frame of mind while writing - using synonyms for more complicated words that came naturally to the page? |
No - I just carried on regardless! Once you're in a story, you don't want to stop to fiddle around. You just have to have faith in what you're doing. The editor picked up on one or two words she thought too difficult for the market, but in the end we usually left them in, on the grounds that readers can damn well extend their vocabulary and look them up, or guess meaning from the context. I don't believe in writing down.