My talented husband, Chris Barton, and I have decided to ask each other questions concerning our work.  Here is what he asked today:

Chris: What’s been the most challenging thing about moving from writing YA to writing books for younger readers?

Me: Voice.  In my YA books, like How Not to Be Popular, there was more internal monologuing.  Teenage protagonists converse with themselves more, mulling over their actions before they do something. They ask themselves questions and try to guess other people’s thoughts and motives.  My new protagonists, the 11-year-old Brewster triplets, don’t — at least not as much.

I do think that eleven-year-olds contemplate things, but not to the level that teenagers do.  Teens are concerned with figuring out who they are and middle graders are more interested in learning about the world.  Blatant generalization, I know, but to me this is the crux of what delineates MG from YA — more so than bad words and references to illegal substances or sexuality.  As writers we choose a faster pace and a less self-centered voice to capture the MG world.

So yeah. For me the biggest challenge in writing my new MG novel was nailing this voice and pacing. It didn’t make sense to have one of the triplets pause for several paragraphs (or pages) for an internal monologue. They do ponder things, but not in a lengthy or heavy way. Once I figured this out, I could far better channel my inner 11-year-old, which was great fun.