On Voice (Finding Your Middle Grade Voice, That Is)

Or, Tools to Help You Find Your Middle Grade Voice

By Mina Witteman

In my previous posts about writing in another language than your native tongue and about the art of translation, an important--if not the most important--part of writing kept speaking up: Voice. I shared how a changing the language I write in also changed my voice and the voices of my protagonists. Voice is the one thing that an editorial agent or an editor can't fix. It's yours and yours only. No one speaks like you, no one thinks like you, no one writes like you. And that goes for both the writer's voice and for the character's voices. And yet, voice is what agents and editors are predominantly looking for. 
 
In my long career as a writer of middle grade, an editor and a teacher of creative writing, I found that the middle-grade voice is one of the hardest to capture. There is always the risk of it sounding either too old or too young, or it's tinged with a message and/or morals, it falls flat or is too excited and with that it sounds unbelievable, unrelatable. But middle graders have an excellent phony detector, and they won't hesitate to put down a book when they experience the voice as phony. What can we do to strengthen our voices? Let me first say some things about middle graders. 

Middle Grade Life

Middle graders are 8- to 12-year-olds. By age 8 most children have moved from learning to read to reading to learn. Their language and literacy skills have improved, as have skills like comprehension and deduction, rational, logical thought and concrete thinking. They understand concepts of space, time and dimension. They use their personal experiences to understand the books they read and the conversations around them. Characters' internal conflicts are typical of what middle grade readers find in their lives. They can recognize the difference between behavior and intent, and they understand how their behavior affects others. They understand concepts of right and wrong. The rule-abiding traits of earlier childhood are cast aside: for this age group rules can be negotiated. 

Remembering Your Middle Grade Self

Remember me being flummoxed by being unable to nail my protagonist's Dutch middle grade voice in English? My completely unscientifically, unproven theory is that my middle grade memories that stood at the cradle of the Boreas stories were in Dutch. I think that if we can access those times when we ourselves were as old as our target group, we're on to something. Jack Gantos says in Dead End in Norvelt: "...we have to save the history we have. You never know what small bit of it might change your life---or change the whole world." Or a reader! 
 

So, who were you when you were in your middle grade years? What can you remember and how can you use these memories to help you find your middle grade voice? How can you access your childhood memories? Some of us have been writers from a very young age and kept dairies and journals. Perusing them is a surefire method to bring back memories, as they often not only give you the actual events but also your mindset at the time. That's exactly what we need to build our middle grade voice. Even if the recording seems merely factual, you can often glean the emotion behind it or, reading the memory, feelings will flood back in. That's also how Jack Gantos started. He was in sixth grade when he read his sister's diary. Arguably wrong, but very much in line with an 11- or 12-year-old. After reading, Gantos decided he could write better. He began collecting anecdotes he overheard at school. A favorite place of his was outside the teachers' lounge to listen to their lunchtime conversations. Many of these anecdotes are woven into his stories. 

Getting the Memories Out

In NPR's Morning Edition, host Rachel Martin and author Kwame Alexander talk about Where I'm From, a collection of poems by poet and children's author George Ella Lyon, that are based on her memories. In the interview, Kwame mentions that the poem is "often used as a jump-off for kids and adults to share their own remembrances, from family sayings to the smell that bring childhood to life. It's like a time capsule of memories." Kwame recites a stanza from "Where I'm From": 

            I'm from fudge and eyeglasses

                        from Imogene and Alafair. 

            I'm from the know-it-alls 

                        and the pass-it-ons

            from Perk up and Pipe down! 

            I'm from He restoreth my soul

                        with a cottonball lamb

                        and ten verses I can say myself

 

And then Kwame makes own lines:

            

            I am from words and art and books

            I am from discipline and hard work

                        the sound of coins in a jar.

I never kept a diary or journal, but I do have a wealth of memories stored in my head. In quietness, I can easily call them up and transport myself back to a boat during my first sailing lessons from my father; to the first day at a new school in the midst of a school year after moving to another town; in a tree hiding from my mother, reading a book and listening to chatterbox magpies; in the backyard and furious with my neighbor kid who whacked a magpie's nest with nestlings out of a tree to feed his ferrets. 
Just like Kwame uses George Ella Lyon's poem, these are deliberate attempts to recall experiences and emotions. Memories can also be triggered by our senses: you smell a scent and, right there and them, you're back in your grandmother's kitchen; you taste a madeleine dipped in tea, like Marcel, Proust's protagonist, and memories come flooding in; you hear a song and think of a lost love; you see a sunset and remember a day too short for all you had wanted to do; you feel a breeze and remember, like I do, the powerful feeling of freedom.

An Exercise

I am not necessarily interested in the memory itself, but I am interested in the emotion that was behind the experience, because that is what will color my middle grade voice and bring it to life. To get there I often write down a memory in first person and present tense, as if I am reliving the experience. Then I rewrite it in third person and past tense. That pushes me out of the story but preserves the emotions that I need to make my middle grade voice believable and relatable to my young readers. Try it! Write down a middle school memory in first person and present tense, drawing on all five senses. Rewrite the memory in third person and past tense, changing the name of the "I" and, if you can, the names of other characters, changing the setting. 

And, of course, Learn From the Pros!

Watch The Dumbest Boy in the World, a story by Jack Gantos, in which he delights us with one of his childhood memories in an absolutely fabulous middle grade voice. Analyze how he tells his story. What do you think he left in? What do you think he left out? Think about what the story would be if told from Jack's sister's point of view? Or his mother's point of view?

 
And check out Kwame Alexander as he talks about inserting a difficult word into his middle grade novel in verse The Crossover without halting the story. This is a way, of course, for Kwame to challenge his young readers, but by doing so, he deftly meshes his voice with his character's voice, and we learn both what makes Kwame tick and what makes his protagonist tick, giving both that so very specific voice middle grade readers love to hear. 

 
And that's a wrap for this month. I hope these posts were helpful in your writing career. It was a great honor to be Lee's co-blogger this month and to connect with so many of my writer and illustrator friends. Keep up the good work. Keep writing! Keep illustrating! Bring your stories into the world. We need them! Your readers need them!

Mina Witteman is a Dutch published author, who writes in English and Dutch. In The Netherlands, she has seven middle grade novels out, a Little Golden Book, and some forty short stories in children's magazines and read-aloud anthologies. Her middle grade Boreas en de zeven zeeën (Boreas and the Seven Seas) was a focus title for the 2019 Dutch National Children's Book Week, an honor it shares with the Dutch version of Kate DiCamillo's Raymie Nightingale. In 2022, the same book came out in an educational edition aimed at reluctant readers. Mina lives in hills of North Berkeley, California, and when she looks out the window of her little redwood shoebox, it's like she steps into a painting by Rousseau.

Thinking of Starting a Series? Check out this advice from Kwame Alexander, Roseanne A. Brown, Chloe Gong, Adalyn Grace, Joan He, and Aiden Thomas

There's a lot of wisdom in this article in Publishers Weekly where Iyana Jones interviewed all six authors with new series openers, "Series Openers: Six Authors on Their New Beginnings."

Standout moments from the interviews (for me) include:

“I always feel like poets who write novels in verse have a much harder job, ’cause you have to write a poem and you gotta write a novel. You have to write a poem on each page, and it has to feel complete, and it has to feel like it’s incomplete enough for you to want to turn the page. That’s work! I feel like it’s the same thing with a trilogy. You want to complete it, but at the same time you want to leave just enough for the reader to crave and grow impatient waiting for that next book in the series. If you can figure that out, that’s great.” —Kwame Alexander

and

“With series, on the other hand, you’re playing the long game. You can plant seeds and hints in book one that don’t need to come to fruition for several more books. It definitely takes a lot of planning and is more taxing on me creatively to weave something so intricate, but it’s an amazing feeling when you get that payoff you can only get from a story that’s had that extended room to blossom.” — Roseanne A. Brown

and

“Before I write, I need a basic elevator pitch so that I’ve articulated to myself what I want to achieve in the book. Foul Lady Fortune’s pitch was: immortal girl wants to atone by saving her city from a conspiracy. Having that as a starting point means I can draw up the complete arc between “this is what the protagonist wants” and “is this achieved at the end of the series?” which I think is critical for keeping a reader interested! After that I can start building elements, such as giving the untrusting protagonist a devilish love interest, or researching true history so that my speculative elements interact with commentary in a meaningful way. But premise, to me, is like the spine that holds a book upright.” —Chloe Gong

and

“The first thing I knew about this story was its prologue, where we meet a baby who somehow manages to defy Death himself in this beautifully eerie backdrop. Throughout all the versions of this story, that scene has never changed. I always knew it was the opening, and from there I started asking myself who this baby would grow up to be. What kind of person is she? What does she want? Everything in the story is built around Signa, to further help tell her story.” — Adalyn Grace

and

“Like many kids of the Chinese diaspora, I was told stories from Romance of the Three Kingdoms growing up. Names such as Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei are basically synonymous with “clever and loyal” and “honorable righteousness,” respectively, within the culture. But it wasn’t until college that I really read and analyzed the text, and as I thought more deeply about the enduring legacy of its characters in contemporary Chinese society, I came up with a “what if” question that ultimately became my midpoint twist, from which my stories tend to spring.” —Joan He

and

“It’s wild to plan all the way to the very end of a book I haven’t even written [yet] before I could start writing the first book. It’s also a huge challenge to plot out two books and keep all that information in my head. It’s way easier to do a standalone because I’m in the moment and don’t have to fact check and make sure I don’t forget to tie up any loose ends. More than once I’ve come up with an idea and thought, “I should change this in Sunbearer!,” only to remember I can’t because it’s already been printed and now exists in the world! But then again, one thing that’s really cool about writing a series is that I get to see folks read The Sunbearer Trials and express their excitement, which characters they like best, and also fan theories. It makes working on the sequel a lot more exciting, and it’s nice having readers cheering me on as I go.” — Aiden Thomas

Even choosing those highlight quotes was hard. Go read the article, and read the books that open their series! Good luck with your series, too.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Did You See The SCBWI Special Event: #KIDLITBLACKHISTORY Month Family Feud, with Host Kwame Alexander? If Not, Here's the Recording.

Kwame Alexander (bottom right) hosts, Don Tate (bottom left) represents The Brown Bookshelf, and April Powers (top left) represents SCBWI, the event's sponsors. Also show in this image is sign language interpreter,Vania Mollinedo (top right).

Check out this remarkable (and remarkably fun) event with children’s book creators Kwame Alexander, Jerry Craft, Van G. Garrett, Lamar Giles, Kwame Mbalia, Breanna J. McDaniel, Oge Mora, Karyn Parsons, and Alicia D. Williams -- a Family Feud-inspired trivia night celebrating Black history.

Sponsored by SCBWI (repped by April Powers) and The Brown Bookshelf (repped by Don Tate), you can find details and the link to download the #kidlitblackhistorymonth trivia questions and answers here.

As April says in the intro, it's an event "Centering Black Lives, Black Joy, and Black Stories."

Don Tate spoke about how "Black history month should be celebrated throughout the year" - and I agree! He spoke about how Black history is under attack, and called to children's book creators, saying "Keep writing those books. We need those books that celebrate Black girl magic, and Black boy joy, but yes, we also need those books that tell the truth about our history."

It's important, educational, and entertaining! Watch it now.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Newbery-Winning Author Kwame Alexander on how giving back changed his world view

This moment, as told by Tamra Bolton at the Parade website, is full of lessons for us all. New York Times Bestselling and Award-Winning author Kwame Alexander helped create a library for children in a remote village in Ghana.

Kwame "had just released his newest book, Solo, about a young man, Blade Morrison, and his struggle to deal with his past and uncertain future. Morrison’s quest eventually takes him to Ghana where he finds his roots and begins to understand who he is and where he is going."

When Kwame visited the village to celebrate the library's opening, he found the building wasn't completed. There wasn't even a roof.

"Like in my book Solo, I came over here to help, but what I discovered is, I’d never asked the question, ‘Is this library important to you? Is this something you want?’ Their answer was, ‘We need a health clinic’. I thought, ‘Why not include a health clinic?’”

The lesson for all of us who want to help make our world a better place?

"I realized you cannot expect to teach a child to read if they are not well. You can’t go into a community and dictate what they need; you have to find out what they need." –Kwame Alexander

Read the full article here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Check out this wonderful conversation between Nikki Grimes and Kwame Alexander on the Power of Poetry

It's a wonderful discussion, shared with us at Publishers Weekly...

We learn about The Golden Shovel form of poetry, hear the latest on Kwame and Nikki's books coming out and in-the-pipeline, and hear them speak from the heart on the power of hope and poetry.

Two standout moments:

"...if you want to have something authentic and powerful to write about, you have to live an authentic, empowering life. I learned that from my parents, from my mentors like Nikki Giovanni, from writers, in particular black writers, who always believed that writing is just a tool to carve out our dreams." -Kwame Alexander

and

"The Harlem Renaissance poets were always writing with a larger intent than mere entertainment. Their work might have been—is— entertaining along the way, but that was never the point of the poetry. The poetry was about encouragement, about uplift, about planting seeds of hope. I am all about hope. It is the one thread I repeatedly use to stitch all my poems and stories together. " -Nikki Grimes 

The whole article is well worth reading!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

"The mind of an adult begins in the imagination of a child." -Kwame Alexander

Read this Author's Note in the New York Times Book Review, "Kwame Alexander on Children's Books and the Color of Characters."

Kwame says it so eloquently, I found myself saying yes, Yes, YES, as I read it. See if it speaks to you...

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Kwame Alexander Has A Strategy: Do You?

Kwame and Lee hamming it up

Recently I had the opportunity to sit in on one of Kwame Alexander's amazing school visits with an assembly of Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders. As always when I get to see a master do their thing, I learned so much. How it's as much performance art as anything else. How music (guitar played by Kwame's friend Randy Preston) can elevate and set the tone. How giving the kids some measure of control (like asking the students which of his two picture books they wanted to hear him read to them) is empowerment, and that's the key to having the audience engaged and hanging on your every word.

An incredibly well-behaved and excited group of 5-8 years olds are still a bunch of excited 5-8 year olds, and there was a moment about twenty minutes in when there was a lot of excited chatter that wasn't really focused. Kwame didn't miss a beat, shifting into a call and response cadence that he'd already engaged the students with earlier, but changing the words:

Kwame: I say, Surf's, you say Up. Surf's...

Kids: Up!

Kwame: Surfs...

Kids: Up!

Kwame: I say Listen, you say Up. Listen...

Kids: Up!

Kwame: Listen...

Kids: Up!

And then he just stood there, smiling. And they were listening again.

Kwame's picture book "Surf's Up"

It kind of blew my mind how elegant and tied into the title of his picture book "Surf's Up!" it was, and it worked! Do you have a strategy to re-gain control of your presentation? It's certainly worth considering.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Gratitude to my librarian friend Yapha for inviting me to Kwame's presentation and for the photo above!

You can find out more about Newbery-Winning author Kwame Alexander here.

You’ve Got To Believe

Kwame Alexander wrote a manuscript in 2008.

He believed in it.

Kwame worked on it with mentors.

He believed in it.

When his agent submitted it, it was rejected more than twenty times.

He believed in it.

“no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” “no.” …

He believed in it.

Kwame decided he would go ahead and self-publish it.

He believed in it.

A week after making that decision, Editor Margaret Raymo said “YES!”

He believed in it.

“The Crossover” was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2014.

He believed in it.

In January 2015, Kwame won the Newbery Award for it – and the book was hailed as “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

He believed in it.

And it came true.

A true story from the 2015 SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City. 

Visit Kwame's website here.

The American Library Association's 2015 youth media award winners!

It's an exciting list of winners and honorees (and certainly, for those of us writing and illustrating for children and teens, an excellent to-read list as well!)

Here are some of the winners:


John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature: “The Crossover,” written by Kwame Alexander, is the 2015 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Kwame was just on faculty at the SCBWI 2015 Winter Conference, and you can check out the official SCBWI Conference Blog posts for his breakout session on "Writing Diverse Characters and Books" and conference-closing Keynote "Dancing Naked On The Floor: How To Say Yes To The Writerly Life."

 Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children: “The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend,” illustrated by Dan Santat, is the 2015 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was written by Dan Santat and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults: “Brown Girl Dreaming,” written by Jacqueline Woodson, is the King Author Book winner. The book is published by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award: “Firebird,” illustrated by Christopher Myers, is the King Illustrator Book winner. The book was written by Misty Copeland and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award: “When I Was the Greatest,” written by Jason Reynolds, is the Steptoe winner. The book is published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.

Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement: Deborah D. Taylor is the winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author Virginia Hamilton. Taylor’s career in public service began more than 40 years ago with the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, where she is currently coordinator of School and Student Services. Her career has been spent as mentor, educator and literacy advocate for young adults. As an inspiring young adult librarian, leader in national associations and university instructor, she has been distinctly effective in introducing young people and her professional colleagues to the outstanding work of African American authors.

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults: “I’ll Give You the Sun,” written by Jandy Nelson, is the 2015 Printz Award winner. The book is published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, a Penguin Random House Company.

Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience:

“A Boy and a Jaguar" written by Alan Rabinowitz, illustrated by Catia Chien and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, wins the award for children ages 0 to 10.

 “Rain Reign” written by Ann M. Martin and published by A Feiwel And Friends Book, is the winner of the middle-school (ages 11-13).

The teen (ages 13-18) award winner is “Girls Like Us,” written by Gail Giles and published by Candlewick Press.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children. The 2015 winner is Donald Crews, whose award-winning works include “Freight Train,” which was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1979, and “Truck,” a Caldecott Honor Book in 1981. He has been consistently excellent with a wide range of titles, such as “Harbor,” “Parade,” “Shortcut” and “Bigmama’s,” all published by Greenwillow Books.


Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults: The 2015 winner is Sharon M. Draper, author of more than 20 books, including: “Tears of a Tiger” (1994), “Forged by Fire” (1997), “Darkness Before Dawn” (2001), “Battle of Jericho” (2004), “Copper Sun” (2006), and “November Blues” (2007), all published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.


Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children’s book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States: “Mikis and the Donkey” is the 2015 Batchelder Award winner. The book was written by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, translated by Laura Watkinson, and published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award honoring a Latino writer and illustrator whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience: “Viva Frida,” illustrated by Yuyi Morales, is the Belpré Illustrator Award winner. The book was written by Yuyi Morales and published by Roaring Brook Press, a Neal Porter Book.

Pura Belpré (Author) Award honoring Latino authors whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience: "I Lived on Butterfly Hill" is the 2015 Pura Belpré (Author) Award winner. The book is written by Marjorie Agosín, illustrated by Lee White and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children: “The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus,” written by Jen Bryant, is the Sibert Award winner. The book is published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Stonewall Book Award - Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience: “This Day in June,” written by Gayle E. Pitman, Ph.D., illustrated by Kristyna Litten and published by Magination Press, an imprint of the American Psychological Association, is the winner of the 2015 Stonewall Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award.

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book: “You Are (Not) Small,” written by Anna Kang and illustrated by Christopher Weyant, is the Seuss Award winner. The book is published by Two Lions, New York.

William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens: “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces,” written by Isabel Quintero, is the 2015 Morris Award winner. The book is published by Cinco Puntos Press.

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults: “Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek,” written by Maya Van Wagenen, is the 2015 Excellence winner. The book is published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group.

Check out the full list of winners and honorees here.

And happy reading!