I wrote for the Sweet Valley series, created by pioneering YA author Francine Pascal. She is a real person. Every year at Christmas, she flies her ghostwriters to a private Sweet-Valley themed party where we are given gold lavaliere necklaces like the ones worn by her twin characters, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Okay, that last sentence is fiction.
FLAVOR:
young, zesty, fun
Young Adult pulp fiction means a light tone with lots of snappy dialogue and action. Even within the genre there are subgenres with differing flavor profiles. My assignments included:
• regular series books, light and frothy
• romance with bittersweet notes
• moody thrillers (starring a teenage chess grandmaster-cum-martial artist)
• special edition summer stories of road trips gone wrong
All required a pinch of irony (but not too much), and a generous sprinkling of pop culture.
PULP
I cranked out more than a dozen books for Francine Pascal and other writers, some of whom must remain top-secret! My favorite Sweet Valley assignment involved Elizabeth Wakefield impersonating a scullery maid in an English castle.
JUICE
I got a lot out of this work. Formula writing looks easy but has its challenges:
• big word counts (mine were typically a mysterious 59,000 words)
• tight deadlines
• taut plotlines
• seamlessly reproducing a predetermined voice and tone
Being productive and speedy are useful takeaways from any job. Tonal versatility and adaptive writing techniques are subtler skills I gained through ghostwriting. They have served me well, beyond the genre.