How To Capture The Middle Grade Voice by Pete Catalano

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It's Monday! And why do I seem so excited about it? Because it's the day I share another wonderful middle grade tale with you. And today I have an extra treat - Middle Grade Author Pete Catalano is here to share how he captured the middle grade voice. I'm so excited to read his hilarious book! Let's see what he has to say.

How To Capture The Middle Grade Voice (Or how this author did, anyway.) :) by Pete Catalano
In ARTIFACTS I feel like I really found my Middle Grade voice for the first time.
In every #MSWL or every plea for the next great book, Agents and Editors stress VOICE! VOICE! VOICE! Once you know what they are looking for it should be easy to write – or is it?
The quest to find a voice that works, no matter what age you’re writing for, is a prize that once it’s inches from your grabby little hands . . . suddenly vanishes. I have been fortunate enough to find a voice that is perfect for the stories I write. A friend of mine wrote in a review of ARTIFACTS that they were “Impressed with how Mr. Catalano was able to create the hysterical sarcasm that is the trademark middle school wit.” I now wear that compliment as a badge of honor as I continue to write Middle Grade!
I guess it helps that I never really grew up.
To this day I still watch movies that other people last saw twenty years ago or more. I can’t turn down the opportunity to watch The Sandlot, Home Alone, Uncle Buck, or even Stand by Me every time it comes on TV (it drives my wife crazy! ) When I write a story I spend a great amount of time watching the action in my head, hearing the conversations between the characters, and writing it all down.
Finding your Middle Grade voice can be accomplished in a number of different ways. 
Become a teacher! While that might be a little dramatic or you might be a little late in life, you get to be part of the wonderful work they do but at the same time be a fly on the wall to conversations that will, one way or the other, find their way into the next great novel.
Read! Read! Read! Read! And then Read some more. The ideas you present in your story will be your own, but if you are able to pick out the sarcasm, the inflections, the wonder, and the conversations that make the reader want to turn the page, you’ll be that much closer to finding your voice.
Listen! If you’re drawn to Middle Grade in the first place there’s probably a chance that the inner child is still there waiting to be heard. It may start as a whisper at first but the longer you listen and the more you pay attention, eventually the words will pour onto the page. To this day there’re things I think are funny that others dis at one time too, but that was when they were twelve. 
I could say hang out at the playground to hear the way kids talk to each other, but in this day and time that will surely get you arrested.
Finding your voice in Middle Grade will be frustrating, awkward, and nearly impossible, but when you do find it (and you will find it) your writing will be funny, believable, funny, realistic, funny, authentic, funny, convincing, and did I mention funny?

Pete Catalano’s books are written for kids of all ages — and adults who secretly never grew up. He lives in Charlotte, NC with his adorably funny wife and two neurotic dogs. Pete was a theatre major in college and tries to keep the ‘suspension of disbelief’ in his life as much as he can. 

Want to know more about Pete? You can find him on his Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest |Goodreads and also by following the rest of his blog tour. 

BAM | Google Play | Chapters | Amazon 

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ARTIFACTS by Pete Catalano Release Date: May 17, 2016 Publisher: Tantrum Books
Description: It's funny how one little letter can change a person's life. Jax and his friends have been planning the summer of a lifetime at Camp Runamuck. However, when one of them is facing summer at a school desk for failing English, they watch those plans crash and burn! At the last moment they're given a way out.
An extra credit assignment to find several fake artifacts for a fairy tale display their teacher is presenting at the local library.
Thinking they've hit the easiest-extra-credit-ever jackpot, they begin rummaging through any piles of junk they can find. As they start putting the clues together, they realize that what they're really searching for is one authentic artifact that can rewrite fairy tales!
Enlisting the aid of the Lost Boys, Jax and his friends battle fairy tale villains to see who can get their hand, or their hook, on it first.

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What do you find unique about writing or reading middle grade stories?