Feedback on My Curious Adventures with a Witch

I met up with Michelle and collected the student feedback for my Aunt Amaryllis novel. Three student groups (out of six) from her YA Publishing class chose my novel, and they all agree there's too much in the one book. They also all agree in changing the title, which is fine with me since My Curious Adventures with a Witch is the fourth working title. And they all agreed that it's middle grade rather than YA, which I thought might happen, even though the protagonist is seventeen.

I'm thinking I'll make it into a series. I've got other ideas for writing about these characters, so I have thought about a sequel anyway.

Strangely, I'm talking about characters I invented and started writing about back when I was sixteen years old. Originally Aunt Amaryllis was purely escapist, something fun to write about while living as a social outcast in rural Indiana. The novel started out as short stories that I decided to string together and call a novel since I was compelled to keep writing about these particular characters.

Perhaps the main characters you invent when you're young are the ones who stick with you the most. I certainly haven't been as attached with other characters as I have been with Aunt Amaryllis and Violet.

Because of the success of the Harry Potter books and the consequent popularity of YA fantasy, I decided in 2003 to dig out that old manuscript and revise it and expand it. Violet became Aunt Amaryllis's apprentice rather than just a niece who shared her adventures; I also made it more clear that Violet is the protagonist. I filled in chronological gaps between chapters/stories.

I'm doing somewhat last-minute work on a fairy tale novella inspired by the European witchcraze. It has a due date of Feb 10. That said, it's far enough along that I can also get back to work on Aunt Amaryllis. So much to write! 

Witch Fiction Trend

It looks like my timing is odd--witch fiction happens to be a trend, and here I am writing it. I've read A Discovery of Witches, which is adult paranormal romance about a witch who's from a long line of witches, and now there's the YA novel Life's a Witch and its eventual series (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/50213-swamped-by-offers-self-pubbed-ya-author-gets-agent-and-more.html). I read Beautiful Creatures about a year ago, and that's also a YA witch novel.

Too bad my novel My Curious Adventures with a Witch isn't already published. On the  bright side, my novella Witch's Familiar is available on Wormhole Electric's site. Furthermore, I'm about to get feedback on My Curious Adventures with a Witch, because I handed it over to Michelle, my former YA Publishing instructor, and she's about to give me the developmental edits that students did on the manuscript last term. So I'll soon revise it, probably share the revised version with my writers' critique group, revise some more, and start contacting agents. Then hopefully it'll get published before witch fiction goes out of style. I think many people have seen enough of vampires and are ready for something different, and I suspect witch fiction won't go out of style any time soon.

Adventures with a Witch and a Manuscript

While I was in grad school last year, I took Michelle McGann's YA (Young Adult) Publishing class. In this class, we read and discussed many novels written for teens. We also broke into groups--pretend publishing companies--and worked with manuscripts on editing, marketing and promotion, and book design.

After I took the class, another student suggested I submit my completed YA novel My Curious Adventures with a Witch to the YA Publishing class, so that rather than paying an editor to work on my manuscript, I'd give students an opportunity to supply me with editorial and marketing feedback. So this past term Michelle shared the manuscript with her class.

I found out yesterday that my manuscript was so popular that three out of the six groups (pretend publishing companies) chose my manuscript to work on! I'm so looking forward to revising it...and I'll likely share the next draft with my new writers group. I hope that after the next revision, literary agents will have a similar reaction to that of the students.