Tragedy, WorldBuilding, Big Questions

Does a character have to have a personal tragedy in their lives to be the catalyst and motivator in their quest?

I wrestled with this a lot during the early days of writing the first book (as yet unpublished) of the series. Did Oliver need something to happen to him that helped propel him forward - when writing query letters is it important to include this information? Oliver's family has suffered tragedy, his brothers have been injured in the war, both in ways that have changed them, would it be too much to add another dead brother to the mix?

 

Should I start off a book with a nightmare about a dead brother?

 I thought and wrote about it a lot in my notes - it felt moribund to me and played out in books - "Oh look he's got a dead brother, he's an orphan etc. etc.

Death is not that romantic to me.

 

I wanted these books to be about a young kid who grows up on his adventures, he brings villains to justice, he exposes ugly truths, why should he be crippled emotionally too ? If we was, it may have made him weak, unable to find the reserves that he needed to complete the journey that he's on, he's a young kid, if he was already fragile and something upset him wouldn't he just run home to his Mother ? What would his parents be like if they too were getting over a tragedy ? The book would begin with such a heavy pall over it I wouldn't want to read past the fifth page.

Why do some authors insist on beating the crap out of their characters so they can find just a little bit more courage inside them? It reads like total bullshit to me.

 

I want my books to be entertaining, I want a kid to have fun, yes fun, reading my story.

I want this series to fool the reader, not in a malicious way, it begins as one story and gradually as things are discovered a larger picture is revealed that changes the main character and everyone around him. I think a middle grade reader wants to identify first with the characters, they want to see themselves and if the world I have built presents itself as sunny first, so be it, because by the time we get to the end of the quest that world is a very different place, darker, and more dangerous.

 

Here's a link to literary agent Gemma Cooper's blog entry on world building, there some good stuff here and some great shots of the Harry Potter Studio Tour, she makes good points about time, how long does it take for a character to get from one place to the other? This was a major issue for me when writing my series and I had FUN, yes fun figuring out all kinds of methods that I could use to move my main characters around in good time.
http://jennybent.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/world-building-with-harry-potter-studio.html

 

I have received two rejections in the past two days, one from what I would call a "Longshot Agent" one that I submitted to but who wasn't quite looking for my type of project, close  but not quite a match and the second was someone I would have liked to work with. It's tough I guess I've set up a couple of challenges for myself that would be better explained in a conversation but if your query/writing sample doesn't give enough or hook them immediately, just move on.
I don't mind the rejections, I've received 11 so far of about 25 queries that I've sent out, it's a competitive time in publishing especially for MG and YA fiction.

 

No pictures for you this morning, maybe later on.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com