Marissa chats with Derrick Chow about his debut middle grade - RAVENOUS THINGS - as well as how fiction, and horror in particular, can help young readers who are experiencing  periods of grief (and how writing fiction can help us work through our own difficult emotions, too); considering the growth and character arcs of not only your protagonist, but supporting characters as well, and how they can all contribute to the larger theme of the story; some great tips on writing a character who has an unusual way of speaking, such as the importance of reading that character's dialogue out loud to keep it feeling natural; deciding whether your new idea is best suited to an illustrated or prose format; and why you might want to step back from a manuscript that is giving you lots of trouble to work on something else for a while - even if you've had interest from an agent.

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