A Hero's Journey with Farmer Falgu

When I’m mulling over a new picture book idea, I often take a large white paper and scribble all over it. Call it a spider diagram during a hurricane. I don’t see patterns yet – but I’m jotting down all ideas around the idea, words that remind me of the idea, ideas that give birth to more ideas.

Find out more about spider diagrams here

 The spider diagram reveals a picture - with broken bits of web, ideas glinting through the gaps, I gather those ideas into a new image. That new image needs a structure.  As much as I’m creative with ideas in the beginning, when I'm playing, when I'm daydreaming, I still need the comfort and safety of structure to organise those chaotic thoughts into a cohesive narrative. Yes! Picture Books have a structure and story arc as much as novels. 
Allow me to tell you a story. The year was 2012. I had published one picture book in 2006/7 and nothing had happened since then. I had a computer full of stories – some that did see the light of day many years later. But many that will never be dusted off.

            I sat down to write my first Farmer Falgu story. (Yes it's a series and find out here about how it became a series). 

Farmer Falgu series was illustrated by Kanika Nair and published by Karadi Tales, India. Available for sale in the UK from Letterbox Library.

I had a general idea of the story – it was going to be about noise and sounds. I had somehow stumbled upon the character – all I knew was that he was going to be a farmer in a farm full of animals. Perhaps it was my childhood growing up in small towns and villages, next to farms, perhaps it was reading all these English books about farms – who knows how our subconscious works and how ideas come up to the surface.

            Reading that story again and dissecting it during a course I taught, I realised it uses a number of structural devices. The first one - The Hero's Journey is what I'm going to talk about now.

How does Farmer Falgu Goes on a Trip map to the Hero's Journey? Is Farmer Falgu going to fight evil villains and jump over aeroplanes and risk his life to save a precious treasure? Not really! At least not in this book.

a)     Spread 1 sets up the problem. Jumping straight in, there was no setup for who Farmer Falgu was and where he was – because that’s what the pictures will do.

b)    Spread 2 shows us the inciting incident – Farmer Falgu sets off on a trip to be away from the problem. Hence the title. 

c)     Spread 3 – shows character – Farmer Falgu is kind and compassionate despite his troubles. But this spread also sets up a future problem. 
     Every action must have an equal and paying off reaction in fiction. 

d)    Spread 4 shows the problem caused by spread 3.

e)    Spread 5,6 & Spread 7,8 make the problem worse. And they add to the problems.

f)      Spread 9 – Farmer Falgu is rid of the new problems caused by his kindness. But he hasn’t yet solved his original problem.

g)    Spread 10 – False hope. Farmer Falgu thinks he has achieved his goal.

h)    Spread 11 – Nope! He was wrong.

i)      Spread 12 – Farmer Falgu ponders over his original problem and he thinks about the problems over the rest of the spreads. He has a final epiphany. Yes! He has solved his problem.

j)      Spread 13 – He returns home with a changed mindset. Nothing in his farm has changed. But Farmer Falgu’s realisation over the course of his journey has changed his attitude.

With some exceptions of deadly battles and evil villains, this is a hero’s journey. Farmer Falgu, our hero, set off to solve a problem, confronts confounding problems, has a false sense of achievement and then loses hope and then finds the thing that makes him happy. He has gotten what he needed, not what he wanted.  

To make this easy for picture book writers, I have a handy storyboard planning tool here. 

            Based on the above dissection, here are some tips for you to take away on your own stories.

1. Think about your character and story as a hero’s journey. See how it maps out in terms of spreads.
2. The planning doesn’t need to come before the writing. If you’re like me and prefer to free write, write the story, from start to finish. Make it fun and interesting and then go back and review the structure.
3. Check the pacing with respect to the narrative. See if you have more spreads in the beginning and you’re rushing to the end.
4. Make sure the problems are progressively complex or accumulating. In picture books, it’s a lot of fun to add to disasters culminating in a big spread of glorious hullabaloo.
5. Check if the character has an internal need and an external want.

Happy Structuring!

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Chitra Soundar is an internationally published, award-winning author of over 40 books for children. She is also an oral storyteller with a loud voice and she also writes trade fiction, non-fiction, poetry and theatre. Her stories are inspired by folktales from India, Hindu mythology and her travels around the world. Chitra regularly runs writing workshops in schools across the world. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com.

Digging Deep to Find Your Character's Emotional Journey by Natascha Biebow

Writing is hard. Not only because you have to put your bum on seat and dedicate the hours, not only because you have to dream up super-original ideas with a new take on what’s already been published in a very crowded marketplace, not only because you invest in a story and then someone may not share your vision, but because you have to dig deep inside yourself to be able to seamlessly convey how it really feels to be your character.

So how do you do this? I’ve previously blogged on the importance of asking your characters difficult questions to discover their true motivation, so you can write from a place of knowing. This is an important first step. But, now how can you use this to take readers on a compelling and satisfying emotional journey?

The trick is to BE the character. If you ARE the character, you don’t need to tell the reader all the external stuff that is going on, because they will be in the character’s shoes as well. So you can show not tell.

Get into your character's Olympic running shoes! (From Sky Private Eye and
the Case of the Runaway Biscuit by Jane Clarke & Loretta Schauer)

Stories are about change. So, if there is no conflict, there is no gripping story. In picture books, authors have to set up the problem and resolve it quickly within just 32 pages. There isn’t time or space to ‘tell’ . . . The relatively easy bit is often figuring out the plot arc, the external journey of change. For example, the story is about a runaway gingerbread biscuit, the farmer who has some cows that type, the time Arthur met The Truth, or what happened at Lily and Blue Kangaroo’s birthday party. 

The action in these plots could be interesting . . . but so what?

IF the author writes from a place of knowing and adds an internal emotional journey of change, the story will be one that has heart. 

Readers will experience the character’s thoughts, beliefs and behaviours in the face of adversity. They will become so engulfed by being in the main character’s shoes that they become the character. So, when the character is sad or uncertain, the reader cries and worries for them. When the character laughs, the reader laughs, too.

It can be helpful to break these two story arcs down in two strands, using the three-act structure. For example, in HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, BLUE KANGAROO! by Emma Chichester Clark:

	ACT ONE	CONFLICT	ACT TWO	BLACK MOMENT	ACT THREE
Plot arc	Best buddies, Lily and Blue Kangaroo are having a birthday party. The theme is pink. Lily dresses top to toe in pink.	Everything is pink themed! Lily is so caught up in her party, she forgets Blue Kangaroo.	Lily’s friends arrive in pink party clothes, give her pink presents, and a magician even conjures up a pink rabbit. Lily loves it!	Mum brings in the birthday cake. It is a pink kangaroo!	Blue Kangaroo tries to make himself pink. When he can’t, he hides in the bedroom. Lily finally misses her special friend. When she finds him, alone wrapped in a blue sock she understands immediately.
Emotional arc	Blue Kangaroo shares everything with Lily – even birthdays.	Blue Kangaroo isn’t sure he likes the pink ribbon Lily ties round his neck.	Blue Kangaroo is the only one who is blue. He bets Lily wishes the magician could make him pink, too.	Blue Kangaroo is NOT pink . . . Lily’s forgotten about him – he falls off the chair in the excitement of the birthday cake moment.	Lily changes into a blue outfit and declares, “I love blue and I love you!” She recognizes that she needs to include Blue Kangaroo. Her friends all admire him, but there is only one Blue Kangaroo – and he is Lily’s.

When you write from the heart, you are right there in the moment with your main character. You don’t have to tell the reader what the character is doing or feeling. The narrative shows it. Like this:

When you successfully tell a story that has a compelling emotional journey, everyone – agents, editors, librarians, booksellers, parents, grandparents and children – will say 'aw' and want to READ IT AGAIN AND AGAIN!

 ________________________

Natascha Biebow
Author, Editor and Mentor

Blue Elephant Storyshaping is an editing, coaching and mentoring service aimed at empowering writers and illustrators to fine-tune their work pre-submission.  

Check out my small-group coaching Cook Up a Picture Book courses! Natascha is also the author of The Crayon Man (coming in 2019!), Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, editor of numerous award-winning children’s books, and Co-Regional Advisor (Co-Chair) of SCBWI British Isles.