By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
ROSSFORD – Natalie D. Richards is living a fairy tale as a New York Times bestselling author, but she admits she is not Alice in Wonderland, the Madhatter, Cheshire Cat or Queen of Hearts.
The high-energy, fun-loving writer relates best to the frenzied White Rabbit, always late for something, she told an auditorium of bookworms and authors-in-process during the keynote address of the second annual Northwest Ohio Teen Book Festival.
The two-time New York Times bestselling author advised the young writers to consider using the three C’s in their writing: craft, characters and conflict, and to read and write a lot.
“The secret to success is first to figure out what success means to you, and then realize the only way to fail is to stop showing up,” she said.
Richards was one of approximately 22 authors on hand to talk to, interact with, and even play board games with the nearly 400 teens, tweens, parents, teachers and other book lovers in attendance.
In addition to the opportunity to win Advanced Reader copies of Richards’ “Four Found Dead” and M. Hendrix’s “The Chaperone,” both due out later this year, participants chose to attend some of the more than 30 activities or discussions that were part of the four sessions during the day.
They listened to Scoot McMahon discuss “Creating Characters.” David Bell and Lillie Vale talked about “Writing for Adults and Teens.” Members of JustWrite Ohio, the host of the event, offered a writing workshop called “Write Now!”
During “How to Create a Pitch for Your Book,” authors Kit Frick and Kate Karyrus Quinn doled out ideas to write compelling pitches for books, stories or ideas.
“It’s a chance to sell your book and the best way to do that is to keep it short and pithy,” Quinn said.
“It’s important to distill it into one or two sentences, but don’t give away the ending,” Frick added.
They recommended using a “take action” or “when” pitch “using words that grab you,” Quinn said. A “take action” formula includes the protagonist in a situation who must take action to solve the problem. A “when” pitch starts with “When the protagonist discovers, learns or has another similar catalyst, they must do something to overcome the obstacle or conflict before a deadline or there will be a consequence.
Several teens had the opportunity to pitch their ideas in a later session titled “Pitch Wars,” after the 10-year, now discontinued, initiative to connect writers to mentors from the publishing industry.
Elena Fuentes, a 13-year-old from Perrysburg, pitched her story about a middle-school girl’s adventures, while Lucas detailed his idea for a fantasy book about a 15-year-old who wakes up to find his mother missing. When several students got into their own conversations with each other about their pitches, Frick and Quinn suggested they share email addresses to continue the conversations after the session.
“What you’re doing is awesome, exchanging ideas and critiquing each others’ work,” Frick said. “Creating relations with other writers is an important part of the creative process. It’s cool to see you all come together like this.”
The SLAM Poetry workshop gave way to three students, Olivia, Donnie and Carly, sharing their performance poetry in an audience-voting competition. Olivia’s “Mom” presentation earned the people’s choice award.
“SLAM Poetry is where playwright meets poetry. It’s interactive where the spoken word is about performance. And the heart of SLAM is the call and response with the audience,” explained Lucas County Poet Laureate Jonie McIntire.
The conclusion of the event was one of the highlights when participants packed the hallway to talk one-on-one with the authors and had copies signed of books they won or purchased through event sponsor Gathering Volumes’ book sale.
