Long Tale Press

Okay, so now that I've actually read the book, you do have a lot of talent and it's some good stuff. I was happy because this is the kind of thing that got me started reading sci-fi in the first place. I'm sorry, I meant to note this in my review but forgot. So here, if James is really a genuis why do his parents A) ignore him all the time and B) treat him like a child of normal intelligence? Wouldn't they know he's smarter than a normal kid and give him the benefit of the doubt when he says there's something important going on? And even if they wanted him to have a normal childhood, they took him into freakin' space! If he was more clearly treated as an intelligent person by his parents it would go a long way towards getting rid of the "isn't this exciting?!?" voice I noted in my review, since they keep using it towards him.Show spoiler

This year for NaNoWriMo, I'm doing a young-adult sci fi novel. A librarian friend recommended "Shanghaied to the Moon" as a good one to read to get mentally into that space. I picked it up from the library today, and read the first few pages. The writing is quite good, and shows some effective strategies for writing sci-fi to a younger audience.

Jennifer, I would encourage you to read it too, just as another data point for you to touch on if nothing else. I would particularly point out two things about it: that it is written in the first person, in a style that has the protagonist talking directly to the reader, as it were. It's a style that permits a greater degree of infodumping than otherwise works in a third-person novel. Because the protagonist is implicitly addressing the reader, and since both the reader and the protagonist know that the protagonist lives in a different world than the reader, it feels more natural to have the protagonist explain things directly to the reader, in ways that would come across like an infodump otherwise. For example, here's the book's first two paragraphs:

Tomorrow's my birthday and my father is on the moon.

That's no coincidence. Two days ago, Dad blasted off to do an emergency job for Alldrives, the biggest aerospace company in the solar system. He didn't have to go. A thousand other computer network specialists could've handled the job. Nope, Dad went to the Moon to get away from me.

The fact that Alldrives is a big aerospace company would be an egregious infodump, if it were conveyed in narrative in a third-person novel. But here, because it all reads like the protagonist is just talking to me, it's more reasonable for him to come right out and explain that. Also note how effectively this short piece (it's 62 words, by my count) conveys the story's setting and starts to outline the central relationship in the main character's life. That's a nice opening.

The other thing I'll point out is that while the book is written with past-tense verb forms (pretty standard) the writer manages to do it in a way that feels very present and lively. It's a nice trick if you can pull it off.

Anyway, just some food for thought. There might be some good tricks you can learn from this book that will help you make How to Create a Super Hero stronger.

Sign up for National Novel Writing Month at www.nanowrimo.org; novel writing starts November 1st!