Kid-Lit Cyberpunk and What You Can Learn About Crafting a Duology
Also, this month's office hours features a special guest!
Well, this month readers were treated to the long-awaited sequel to Olivia Chadha’s award-winning Young Adult debut, Rise of the Red Hand… with Fall of the Iron Gods, which published with Erewhon Books on the 23rd.
I was lucky enough to meet Olivia during Beth Phelan’s DVpit, a social media pitch event that encouraged marginalized creators to post about their book, in hopes agents and/or editors might see and request it. While DVpit isn’t going on anymore, the influence it had is going to radiate through the book world for a very long time.
If you don’t follow Beth’s work, you really should.
Rise of the Red Hand went on to win the Colorado Book Award, earned out quick, had a paperback release, was a Locus recommend reading pick… the list goes on. If you’ve yet to check out the first book, I do hope you will, and please, pick up the second in the duology.
You’ve never read cyberpunk quite like this before, I promise you that.
Thinking about Olivia’s series, a duology, and some of what we talked about in my office hours last time (and yes, I’m hosting another, read on for the date and time), had me wanting to touch on something I get asked about a lot.
If my book is the first in a duology, can I pitch it as a duology? Or does it strictly need to be pitched as having “series potential.”
I may break off from what a lot of my colleagues will say here with this, but here goes…
If your book is meant to be a duology, write and pitch it as a duology. That’s your vision? Pitch your vision.
Just make sure you’re structuring the duology so it works as a duology.
Look, really great books that are crafted to be a two book series do one particular thing really well structure wise.
Book one, wraps up the personal stakes (or at least most of them), giving us an ending that is satisfying even if we only read the first book. There’s some level of catharsis there. However, readers will be eager for a second book because…
Book two, wraps up the world stakes.
Without giving you any major spoilers, here are some excellent, favorite duologies that do this really well… one of which is, of course, Olivia’s (again, please buy it!).
Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston: You might know Ashley Poston from their smash hit The Dead Romantics, but fun fact, she wrote my favorite YA space opera of all time. The second book, Soul of Stars, is a masterpiece. While you’re here, subscribe to her newsletter,
.Want by Cindy Pon: Cindy Pon’s Want was one of the books we used to comp (comparative title) Olivia’s duology to. It’s a flawless dystopian sci-fi duology.
The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker: I feel like a lot of people slept on this fantasy duology, about a witch hunter who is accused of being a witch herself.
Contagion by Erin Bowman: I apologize, because if we’re friends, you have likely heard me talk about Erin Bowman frequently. I quote her often when I give talks (her writing advice is unbeatable), and this duology is a masterclass in sci-fi genre blending (it won the Edgar award for mystery!). And hey, while you’re here, also subscribe to her newsletter,
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The thing that all of these books do so so well, is by the end of book one in the series, there’s some kind of a resolution, be it personal or some of the smaller world stakes, and by book two… there’s a sense of catharsis for everything.
So, as you’re busy crafting that two book series, I want you to think about that.
How will you wrap up the personal stakes in book one, so that it’s still satisfying to readers?
And how you will you wrap up the world stakes in book two, so your series sticks the landing?
Check out those books I suggested, to really see how to do that.
Now, about those office hours!
April’s brain pick was a bit of an experiment to see if it could work, and it felt like it did! There was a good bundle of you in there, asking great questions. I even saw some old friends in there (everyone please order my pal Jules’ cookbook!), so I’m going to give this another go.
As some of you might know, I once held pretty regularly brain pick office hours at Indy Hall here in Philly. Some of those have since moved to Discord and the like, but I’d like to try and continue that vibe with this, and see how it goes. Especially with colleague like
and inspiring me.So! May’s office hours will be on May 20th, at 8PM EST, and will feature my colleague and pal Claire Harris.
That week is a big week for Claire, actually, as Summertime Punchline by Betty Corrello, a Philadelphia-based author who I adore (seriously this book is amazing), is coming out on May 21st. You can catch her with Nisha Sharma at A Novel Idea later that week on May 23rd. I’ll be there getting my books signed, you should too!
So I’m thankful she’s making the time to come hangout and answer questions. If you don’t know Claire, you can learn about what she works on here. She works on everything from horror to romance to New York Times bestselling humor.
You can RSVP here, and this time, I’ll make sure the video is on for everyone and not just me!
As for some delightful agent-life news, here are some of the highlights:
K. Ancrum’s Icarus landed a fifth starred review!
Amy Ratcliffe’s debut rom-com was acquired by Kensington.
Nita Tyndall’s third YA novel, Have You Seen This Girl, publishes on May 21st!
There’s a Goodreads giveaway live for Jill Baguchinsky’s So Witches We Became.
We’ve got much more to talk about in the coming weeks, so please stay tuned.
And hey, if you haven’t yet, I sure would love it if you scoped out my short story in The Sunday Morning Transport. Huge thank you to
and for giving me a chance.
Be good, and go write good things.
Thanks for the shoutout, Eric -- for CONTAGION, and for sharing my writing advice in general! I must add though that while CONTAGION was an Edgar nom, it didn't win the award that year. That went to the incredible Courtney Summers and SADIE.
I'm joining your office hours this time and you can't stop me