So…I couldn’t help but notice that a few people have dropped by to read the Red Hair article. Thanks for coming over!

I’ve been thinking for a while that it really needs some updating because some of the things I rarely see anymore (vegetarian teens, for example). The piece was first published by SCBWI just over two years ago, but I’d written it about 6 months before that. That list was generated from the reading I was doing in 2005 & 2006. While a lot of it is still going strong, things have changed too. Trends have changed. For the last year, about half of what I’ve been reading are ARCs and I’m well into a stack of next year’s ARCs too. Because of that, I really have missed a lot of the cliches from 2007-08. I’d love it if you want to add to the comments section what you’re seeing over and over these days.

I also want to say that I am in no way telling anyone how to write their book. The list is intended to show what I have seen over and over again. That’s all. My point in writing it was always that if you’re using any of these things to be unique, maybe you want to think again. That’s all. After all, who am I to tell anyone what to write?

Here is a follow-up article that I wrote for SCBWI earlier this year.