Caroline B. Cooney...

The Face on the Milk Carton has sold a bazillion copies, and in this session author Caroline Cooney gave a rather fascinating look into how she got from initial idea to bestseller, describing how she developed her plot and her character in Milk Carton and a few other titles. Below are a few nuggets from this presentation:

• Be sure your character, though flawed, is lovable.
• When you develop stories ideas, come up with 100 questions.
• Action is easy to write--don't slow down action with details.
• She believes the bulk of YA readers are 11- and 12-year-old girls.
• Her first drafts are always "stupid."
• The lead character has to be the one to resolve the story.
• You can do anything for 15 minutes--set a timer and write a scene.
• It's much easier to expand and revise than to write in the first place.

She ended saying: "I love writing, except when it's really hard--then I hate it."