This book is an incredible example of voice guiding you through the story. Strangely, the title character is not the first person narrator (Tom), nor even the main character of the book. And yet the book revolves around Firegirl, a girl that has been horribly disfigured in a fire, and explores the way that a single person or single moment in time can define and change us for years to come.

More stunning than the distinctive and strong voice of Tom, is the way that Tony Abbott manages to show Firegirl in a light that always makes us feel empathy, rather than pity.  And despite the sensitive subject matter, there is not a moment of cheesiness in this book. How does Abbott manage to do this?

My best guess is that Abbott lets us see Firegirl through the eyes of a teenage boy who is trying hard to find his place in the world. Tom feels both revulsion and sympathy for this girl, without judging either emotion. His flaw is not callousness, but merely that this is the first time he’s ever imagined what it might be like to be someone else. Or what other peoples lives might be like. Tom is struggling with empathy, right in front of our eyes. It is this struggle that makes Firegirl so unique. And also what makes this story such a compelling read.

But what really thrilled me about this year’s conference was how many people were talking excitedly about the changing medium of books. E-books, cross-platform storytelling, and the future of publishing was on everyone’s minds and here’s what I took away from the discussions.

Technology is evolving in a direction that will allow us to tell stories in ways we haven’t even begun to imagine. Websites and enhanced ebooks allow us, as writers and illustrators, to stretch outside the boundaries of pictures and pages. A story can be expanded by creating maps, back stories, and world-building on a website. Characters can exist alongside kids on myspace and facebook and twitter and all the newest interwebs. Author interviews and other innovations can make ebooks a valuable and interesting way to read.

More than that… these things are cheap compared to printed and bound books, and much more in the author’s control. And while fewer gatekeepers might mean lower quality, it also means experimentation, creativity, and (not to sound overdramatic) revolution!

In Jon Scieszka’s talk about telling stories across multiple media formats, he showed numbers for how much time kids spend consuming media. While some people were shocked at the high numbers, I realized that I, myself, usually spent more than the average kid on computers, video games, and listening to music. And that doesn’t upset me. As Jon Scieszka (the former Ambassador for Children’s Literature, no less) said, our job is not to stop kids from using technology, but to teach them how to filter it. How to be media literate.

This summer, for the first time in the writing world, I heard more excitement than fear. More creativity than condemnation. And that set my brain whirling and my heart racing. This is an amazing time to be a writer. For the first time in hundreds of years, books are changing. And we’re the ones writing the story.

It was sold in a 2 book deal to Stacey Barney at Putnam/Penguin. I’ve spent so much time with this story and these characters… now I’m incredibly excited to share them with the world.

And evidently, so is Putnam! Listen to what Publishers Weekly has to say about The Harbinger.

“Putnam Nabs YA Debut
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers has pre-empted world rights, in what it called a “major” deal, to Sara Wilson Etienne’s debut YA novel, The Harbinger. The acquisition is part of a two-book deal by editor Stacey Barney and agent Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. The Harbinger is a paranormal work set in a near-future world in which a diminishing oil supply has led to chaos as cities have fallen prey to mass rioting. The 16-year-old heroine begins the novel trapped in a prisonlike school called Holbrook Academy, where she’s tormented by strange visions. These visions lead her to the Harbinger, who has been sent to destroy the world in order to save it. As fate would have it, our heroine is the only one who can stop the titular being. Putnam is planning a spring 2010 publication. Wilson Etienne studied marine biology and lives in California.”

And while I do have time-travel abilities, the book sadly won’t be coming out until Spring 2012.

And now in true Penguin style, I’m off to celebrate. Waddle, Waddle, Whoooooooosh!

It’s an interesting exercise, but it can also be a confusing one. Everyone agrees that stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But the theories on just how these should play out are endless and often contradictory. People write whole books on the subject, make their living teaching seminars about it, and create graphs detailing just how and when tension should rise or fall.

These differing pictures of plot are confusing enough without even mentioning three act structure or the hero’s journey or A and B plots.

The truth is that each book is different and plot often can’t be distilled down to an x and y axis. But it’s still important that we ask ourselves: How do we keep the tension going in a story? How do we hook the reader over and over so that they keep reading? How do we divvy out information? How do we reveal secrets? Which scenes do we show and which do we skip over?

Pacing and tension are some of the most challenging things to do in a book and though editors might be able to help you shore up your story structure, you’ll never get that help if an editor isn’t interested enough to read your book in the first place. So I keep some personal rules in mind.

• If I’m bored writing a scene, then people will be bored reading it. Sometimes we write scenes purely to maneuver our character into the situation we want them to be in. But this is always a mistake. That sort of scene does nothing to advance the plot. In addition, it often forces our character to behave in ways that don’t feel natural.

• The problem can be the solution. Problem: The scene is boring. Answer: Make the character bored. They will get restless and automatically get themselves into trouble. Which, ultimately, is right where you want them.

• Let your characters lead and shape your story. I tend to write plot heavy books, but even so, this is a crucial rule. If you create three-dimensional, interesting, and believable characters, then, like volatile chemicals, they will mix together in ways you never could have imagined. Trust them to move the story in unexpected directions. They will find their own way through your plot.

• And lastly, be mean to your character. The best way to make your story interesting is to make your character take risks and suffer. This can be hard because we grow to love our characters, even the villains. Not to mention that they are often aspects of ourselves. But despite this, we must push them to their breaking points. Only then can they be truly triumphant.

Graphs and theories can be infinitely helpful tools when it comes to creating novels. But the key is to listen to your story and trust that it will find its own way through. Beginning. Middle. And End.

Some people suggest that when writing crucial scenes in your book, you should employ at least three out of the five senses. As in: “Sara listened to the computer hum impatiently while she tried to think of a good example. She stalled, grimacing as she took a gulp of bitter coffee-gone-cold. The shiny, smooth keys of her computer beckoned her to be brilliant, but alas, she wrote this instead.”

This is a great technique and I like to expand it to the story creation process. Because unless the world feels real to you, in all five senses, it’s not going to feel real to the reader. Bringing your fiction into the physical world anchors you in your character’s voice and setting in a way that nothing else does. So in the past I’ve talked about building dioramas, collecting shoe boxes full of stuff my character loves, and, most importantly for me, finding a soundtrack to my story.

In my last project, I incessantly listened to the soundtrack to Battlestar Galactica, letting its Taiko drums and wailing flutes build tension and tone in my writing space. I can’t help but feel that the words are infused with a sense of that music, much like honey is flavored by the flowers that bees visit.

So when I started a new story, I felt lost without music for my new world. I started avidly listening to the radio, asking friends what they were listening to, paying attention to soundtracks in movies. At the same time, I was searching for the voice of my main character. For a while, writing was frustrating, my words feeling more like an outline than a book. Then I found Sigur Ros.

This Icelandic band has a raw tone that feels bleak and wistful and, occasionally, soaringly hopeful. The first song I heard by them stunned me. I could literally see one of my key scenes unfolding in my mind. It was like being given a key to this world I had been circling and spying on for so long. Suddenly, I could walk with my character through the streets of my story. Amazingly, when my husband heard the same song later, he had the same experience. For weeks I’d been talking about this world, about this character, bouncing ideas off of him, and this song triggered the same emotions in him as it did in me.  Now I could not only visualize my world, I could hear it too. And in the space of one song, my story had come to life.

It’s an incredible sight, reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, with orange colored fields stretching into the distance. But the stunning thing to me is that this is all happening in what is essentially a desert. Silvery green sagebrush breaks up the vivid flowers. Tumbleweeds come rolling at you up across the landscape. And rattlesnakes sun themselves on the sandy path.

It amazed me that, in what should be a sparse landscape, such beauty and vibrancy could be found. The plant that fascinated me the most was the false dandelion. It was instantly recognizable as similar to the puffballs we’re used to. But this ‘dandelion’ was shimmery and structured, almost looking like it was made out of glass or quartz crystals. I bent down to study it and hesitantly reached out to touch it, certain the flower would be barbed or sharp. But it was sleek and silky.

The wind was so fierce that it hurt my eardrums. You could lean into it and let it hold you up, imagining you were flying out over the orange hills. But even in that exhilarating, buffeting wind that swept across the landscape, this ‘dandelion’ remained intact. Waiting.

But what was it waiting for? Just the right current of air to blast a seed off of it? Was it waiting for rain? Or the right temperature? I guess in the desert, you have to be sure of your moment.

And I suppose the same is true for a story. The landscape around us is often a bit harsh. If we aren’t careful, we can be swept up in hurricanes of criticism and doubt and cautionary voices. And if we do, we run the risk of our story falling on gritty, dry land.

So while we are crafting each crystalline seedpod, we must shield our stories. We must hold them close and muffle the noise of the wind whipping past. We must build the story as strong as we can and hold tight. This is challenging enough as it is, but then there is a trickier bit.

We must wait.

How can we be sure when it’s the right time to share our stories with others? We can’t. Somewhere there is a balance between giving your story to trusted readers and patiently allowing the story to grow in the protected alcove of your imagination. By letting it go too early, you risk the wind smashing your dandelion apart. But if you never let the story go, it will never take root.

In this dance of risk and trust, each of us has to figure out the timing we feel comfortable with. When to take shelter and when to share. But the most important thing to remember is that even in the desert, lovely things grow.

And the only answer I can come up with is, yes. Yes it does.

Because the only thing I know what to do with my despair and uncertainty is turn to the page. I put my questions down sentence by bewildered sentence. Hoping my characters will be able to find meaning in all this ugliness and create something hopeful with it.

Fiction is our way of making sense of things in a world that doesn’t make sense. In imaginary worlds, we can talk about issues in a context that seems safer than our everyday life. And, in a story, the world must have consistent rules and satisfying, if not hopeful, endings.

Discussing difficult issues has long been the domain of science fiction and, at times, fantasy. It’s no accident that Star Trek had the first interracial kiss on TV. Or that the show has often explored gender roles in both work and love. That distance of time and space allow us, as a culture, to discuss issues that are too difficult in reality.

So when I despair over whether we as a species, a culture, a community will ever grow out of our small-mindedness… Or when I wonder whether we will destroy ourselves before we learn how to take care of our planet… Or life simply seems too cruel…then I let my doubts play themselves out on the page. I give smart, brave characters the same fears I’m struggling with, the same obstacles, and trust that they will find a way out. Through this process I feel the characters’ pain and their doubts, but I also feel something else. Hope.

As a reader or a writer, when I turn to the page, I find hope there. Hope as I watch characters fight to survive whatever is thrown at them. Hope as they find solutions in spite of themselves, in spite of their situations. And I bring that hope back with me. Through the page. Into the world. And then I hold on tight.

During the question and answer segment, a boy got up and asked her, “Why do your books always have sad endings?” Then he listed off the melancholy endings of book after book.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Kate laughed with the audience, looking a little sheepish.  Then she took a minute to really think about the question. She went on to explain that she didn’t mean to write sad endings,  but that life is full of the sad as well as the beautiful, and she tries to write what is in life.

This was a big difference from Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries) who also talked about the sadness of life in her dynamic speech. But Meg Cabot’s answer to this uncomfortable truth about life, and especially childhood, is to write ‘pretty things.’ She said she wants strong girls and glitter and prettiness as an escape from what might be the bleakness of real life.

I found these differing answers to the same truth fascinating. And cleary, judging by the popularity of both their books, both are needed in our world, often by the same readers. Sometimes I want to read a world that has beauty and sadness that reflects our own, but whose stories often make more sense than the seeming randomness of our own lives. But other times, I want to escape, with glitter or dirigibles or princesses, to a world totally unrecognizable from mine.

What struck me the most in these two talks was that both writers, so different in their styles, their presentations, their books, knew why they wrote what they wrote. They were compelled by their subjects and it was this compulsion that led to the confidence in their speaking and in their writing.

Perhaps that is something it takes years to develop. Not just the courage to get your words down on the page or to stand up in front of readers, but a certainty in what you choose to write. Perhaps it is this, more than tears or glitter, that invites us into these authors’ stories. That, word-by-word, builds their worlds around us. And it’s this confidence that makes us want to stay.

This week I read a story where the main character has supernatural insight into the life of a long-dead character. In this book, dreams revealed a secondary storyline that was fascinating and mesmerizing.  But not once did the main character wonder why they were having the dreams. Nor did the characters around him, who he shared the dreams with, ask that question either. And not once did anyone wonder if the dreams were real. And while I was intrigued by this unusual plot, I couldn’t help thinking that there was a big “Just Because” involved.

Writers run into this problem a lot in their stories. You want the story to fork this way, so the character makes that decision. The character needs to be outside for this scene so, of course, that has to happen. And these artificial plot-turns jump out at the reader. In fact, they wave red flags and wear gold lamé and shout ‘Hey! Heeeeeeey! I don’t belong!” And most of the time, you, as a writer, know it.

And so, when your critique group or editor asks, “Why does your character decide to do that?” You put your head in your hands and groan. Because you thought, just this once, you could get away with it. And you have no idea how to fix the problem.

But often these Just Because moments open a door for you. They force you to delve deeper into you character and deeper into your story. What if your story didn’t take that fork, but took the other? What if your character stayed inside the house? What would happen then? It forces you to stop and listen to all of your characters. To look at where your story is going and, more importantly, why it’s going there. And when you do this, you find out that your story and characters have something to say, not just to your audience, but to you too.

So I wonder about this book I read. It was complex and rich, but what if someone along the way had asked the author, “Why is the boy having these dreams? What is happening here that is allowing this connection to happen? Is it magic? Are they real?” And what if the characters themselves had asked these same questions? Maybe the author would have discovered something they didn’t know about their story. Maybe, we as readers, might feel a little more satisfied at the end. And maybe the two plots, instead of looping artfully around each other, would have braided and twined together to create one strong, inseparable story.

See, during the past months of revision, I daydreamed about starting a new story. I’d sit next to a waterlily-filled pond somewhere, seized by inspiration, scribbling down long, brilliant paragraphs. (Why a pond? Especially since Laptop+Water= Tragedy) Anyway, my thoughts would weave themselves together, creating a manuscript with a beginning you couldn’t put down, an intriguing middle, AND a surprising, yet inevitable ending.

Instead, I’ve found the process of writing a first draft just like I remembered it, clumsy and full of doubt. And clumsy isn’t fun. Surprisingly, neither is doubt.

And suddenly, I wished I was revising again. In hindsight, revision seems like strolling through a lovely greenhouse, rearranging plants, watering this one here, pruning that one there. Now, I find myself back on a dusty plain with a handful of seeds and a empty watering can. True, I can create whatever I want in this vast open space, but first I have to find some water, figure out what kind of seeds I have, and get digging. All of this is awkward, hard work that leaves your hands calloused and caked with mud.

Wow. Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away with myself there. Plus now, I have two competing metaphors. Puppies and gardening. Hmmm… better throw in a third one, just for good measure.

Vroom! Meep, Meep!

Right now, in the middle of my first draft, I can hear the Road Runner, I can see him, but he just keeps racing in dizzying circles around me. For the last few weeks, I’ve been forging ahead anyway. Since I know my beginning and I know my ending, surely I can find a path between the two points. But somewhere in the middle there, the story gets boring. And I’ve learned to heed the warning signs. When you sit down to write a scene and you think to yourself, ‘Ugh!’ then whoever reads it is going to think ‘Ugh!’ too.

I’ve figured out that something is missing in my story and it’s as elusive and taunting as the Road Runner himself. But this morning and every morning, I will sit down at my computer and start again, creating contraptions, building traps, and scheming new schemes. After all, I’m Wile E. Coyote, Suuuuuper Gen-i-us and I’m bound to catch him sometime, right?

Right?