Ah, the writing process! Finishing a first draft is not the end; it’s only one thing checked off in a long list of steps and stages along the way to a published book. My current book under construction, Douglass Houghton Michigan Man of Many Talents, is now in the editing stage. It is a biography of Michigan’s first state geologist who was also a medical doctor, chemist, botanist, zoologist, and geologist. Yes, many talents! It is time for me to pay attention to critiques by people who know my audience (grades 4-8) and know the history involved. This is a stage of writing when I don’t want “praise”. I want to know what works, of course, but also what needs improvement.

Middle grade readers are a tough crowd. If a book doesn’t catch their interest on page one, they will toss it aside—unlike we adults who often make ourselves read an entire boring or poorly-written book out of some sense of duty (or idiocy?) and then afterward groan that we can’t believe we read the whole thing!

Biographies are tricky, too, because they are 100% nonfiction. No dialogue or creative elements unless we have a reliable source to back up that conversation or creativity. And then write the piece so it INTERESTS the middle grader. I turned to friends who, like me, are retired teachers. But I taught little people (four and five-year-olds), so I turned to friends who taught in the upper grades or the youngest high school kids. I am following their advice:

Shorter paragraphs, more context for unfamiliar words, some maps and images, richer description and a few more “probably”, “perhaps”, “it could have been” etc. to get kids to think about what things may have felt like without crossing the line into historical fiction or creative nonfiction.

My former fourth-grade teacher friend had her ten-year-old grandson read some of it. (Ah, my target audience speaks.) He liked it! And said it was “interesting but not engaging”. Well, I’ll take that compliment any day from a boy that age. “Engaging” is important in fiction; “interesting” is important for nonfiction. More importantly, my publisher is pleased so far, and I’m beginning to work with the illustrator he chose. We will have one illustration per chapter, two in a couple, done in pen and ink, and charcoal to fit the early to mid-1800s era, along with a few photographs and images of art from that time period.

With luck, I might have the book off the press by fall. Stay tuned.