Last weekend I went away to a farm in the middle of nowhere with 17 other authors.
We meet up regularly through the year via the Scattered Authors' Society (which I thoroughly recommend joining). In February we meet to talk about business (I've posted about the 2014 meet up here). In November we meet to talk about creativity.
It's a lovely escape from normal life. We spend the three days playing - finding what inspires us or motivates us. We run our own workshops and this year we had:
Jen Alexander unlocking our subconscious to find images that would help us write
Liz Kessler describing the journey of a book that was heavily influenced by music
Jackie Marchant sharing her techniques for world-building
A group of authors being frank about the commercial pressures of writing
Lucy Coats leading us through a meditation
Steve Gladwin encouraging character building through drama
June Crebbin exploring poetry
In between the workshops we had cosy chats by the fire
long walks
and plenty of cake.
This year I led a workshop on 'shaping' - it's not quite plotting (because I'm not a detailed plotter) it's more about seeing the arc or structure of a story. I use a picture book approach - setting out 12 spreads for all my books, even longer fiction ones. I find that being forced to select the 12 most important aspects (in terms of emotional plot or action plot) makes me prioritise.
I use a grid spread like this
There is a link to the PDF of this here in case you want to use it
and I plot out a common book structure on it - so you might have:
Spread
1Set up – introduce characters
Spread
2 What is the problem?
(think in terms of the
practical problem and its emotional effect)
Spread
3-10 The problem grows
Magic 3?
Increase to climax
Spread
11Solution
Spread
12Satisfying ending
Bedtime/party
Can have a twist
I find this method helps me see the shape and flow of the
book; where the high and low points are, where the character development
happens.
Sometimes I find it useful to plot out someone else's
book to see their structure. Here is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen plotted
out (messily) in 12 spreads:
I found everyone's workshops so inspiring. I love hearing
how other authors write; how they come up with ideas, how they move on when
they feel blocked. I tend to be quite a practical person - my approach is
logical with plans and grids and lists - so it's wonderful to let go and listen
to music or bird song and let the ideas come from somewhere deep down, in
another part of my brain. Sometimes the necessary commercial aspect of our job
means we forget to refill our creative well and I always come back from the
retreat refreshed and full of joy for the career I've chosen.
We end with an evening where we each read aloud from our
work and it's fascinating to hear the range of texts, from picture book to
novel, and genre, from zombies to romance.
I always work better in winter when the weather is cold so, after the retreat, I'm inside, snuggled up, ready to go.
I have been thinking recently about the delicate balance that exists in the relationship between an editor and freelancer. Having been both an editor and an author, I know there is a trade-off between meeting the needs of the company and its sales targets, and keeping contributors engaged and committed and generally ‘onside’. But what constitutes good and bad practice? Below is my list (in no particular order) of suggestions to smooth the relationship. If you are a freelancer, please add your own thoughts and experiences and it would be great to hear from some editors, too.
1. Don’t treat an author’s text as your own. Don’t try to re-write it wholesale. Good authors spend a lot of time choosing the right vocabulary and establishing the right rhythm. Many inexperienced editors don’t realise this and tamper with text too much. Suggest improvements by all means, but let the author convert suggestions into text.
2. Don’t ask your author to make changes without carefully explaining why. This may seem obvious but surprisingly it happens a lot. It isn’t about being above criticism. An author needs to know that the editor is clear about the direction of a project. There’s nothing worse than “Hmm. It’s not right yet,. I don’t know why….Can you sort it out?”
3. If you have a brief or some comments on work, email them over but also make sure you explain properly what you mean. Emails are notoriously bad communication tools. People take them to mean one thing when they mean another. Better to email, then phone.
4. Constant phoning with thoughts and requests isn’t great, either. Not only is it time-consuming, but the freelancer is going to feel that the editor doesn’t quite know what they are doing.
5. I have been to lots of sales conferences in the past, and salespeople often suggest useful improvements to proposed new projects but they have occasionally been known to spout ill thought-out nonsense, too. Good editors can sort the wheat from the chaff and gently but firmly head off the less considered comments. Don’t pass on all comments wholesale to the author and expect them to act on all of them. If there are consequences – a change of schedule or a lot of rewriting – it needs pointing out in-house.
6. If there are changes to be made, is it a rebrief on your part? Did you ask for one type of text and now you’re asking for another? Don’t pretend it’s not a rebrief when it is. If it is, you should allow for more time, and if appropriate, some recompense.
7. Freelancers are not employees. They need to be properly paid for their time and expertise, and treated with respect. See Point 6 above.
8. Keep your contributors in the loop about what’s going on in-house – If there’s been a delay or a postponement, for example. Silence is the worst option.
9. It takes surprisingly little to make a freelancer love you forever. ‘Thank you’ is good. Thank a freelancer immediately for work sent, even though you may not have had time to read it yet.
10. Tell your authors and illustrators what kind of projects your company is looking for, perhaps in the light of bookfair or sales team feedback. Your contributors are creative thinkers and, given the chance, they are likely to produce the goods.
Keeping the balance right is a difficult skill, requiring fine judgment and good people-handling skills. The payback for a good editor is in creating a good pool of creative talented people who are always keen to work for you.
One other thing. Get out of the office once in a while. Come and have a chinwag, a cuppa and a bun. Then you really will have your freelancer eating out of your hand!
PS: It would great to post a similar list from an editor regarding contributors. Do get in touch, editors.
Picture books are nothing special. 300 words? Some childishly simple pictures of cute kids or funny animals? A doddle. How hard can it be? Anyone could do it. . .
Picture books are EASY.
Yeah right.
I may be preaching to the choir here, but plenty of people confuse simple with easy. And, as any fule know, they are not the same at all.
Being as I am, at the simple, 'cartoony’ end of things illustration style wise, I am perhaps somewhat touchy about this.
Picture books are hard! (well, good ones are)
It's really interesting, reading the wonderful posts on this blog, to discover other authors’ and illustrators’ fascination with the mysterious process that is picture book creation.
I share their fascination. I also share the frustrations and rewards that come with the task of trying to choreograph the delicate dance performed by words and pictures in such a way that the result adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It’s certainly a deeply mysterious bit of chemistry, or possibly an equally mysterious bit of quantum mechanics mixed with a dash of chaos theory. . .
The analogy of a picture book with a piece of music, which James Catchpole posited in an earlier post is a good one. (It struck a chord with me. . . struck a chord. . get it? Oh never mind.)
My take on it is that a good picture book is like a perfect three chord pop song. Nothing you could add would improve it, and nothing you could take away would improve it. It is perfect as it is in its simplicity. And like a perfect three chord pop song, a good picture book is a hard thing to pull off.
OK, more than three chords but the principle still applies ;-)
So, to put my own oar into the mix, as The Poet said (he wasn't a very good poet). . . As an author/illustrator, how do I approach picture book creation? Which comes first in my creative process, words or pictures?
Well, as I’m an illustrator who at first, only took to writing in order to have something to illustrate, (and to get bigger advances, obviously) you might be surprised to hear that in my case pictures don't always come to me first. But when they do, it goes like this -
The process starts with a character, my Potential Picture Book Protagonist. I start to draw him or her to see if that sparks any further inspiration. For me, for it to spark a fully-fledged picture book idea, a character drawing has to have the potential for a story contained within it somehow. I can’t just foist a generic story (even if I could think of one) onto a character. That never works, for me at least, and I've quite often had to drop what I thought were some great visual characters because I couldn't nail down what they would actually do. I couldn't prize a viable story out of them.
I never did know quite what to do with Small Bear here. . .
For me, a story has to emerge from, or become apparent as a kind of by-product of the picture. There has to be a fit. I have to be able to say. “Ah, so that's what was going on!”
This is best explained visually. I saw a great photo of a puffin on a website I was a member of a while back. It was walking along with one leg in the air. I thought it was really funny in an endearing sort of way and had serious children's book character potential.
(I'd post a link here but it's not on that site any more it seems)
So I drew a puffin character in a similar silly-walk sort of pose. Just for fun, I drew him looking out of the corner of his eye as if he had just noticed something happening behind him. He looked slightly pompous and silly, caught in mid stride.
I liked the drawing very much and was sure that there was a story in there somewhere. Nothing came to me straight away so I left it to ferment for a while. I did email it to David Bennett at Boxer Books as he is a visual person and would respond if he liked it. He really liked it, which was encouraging, so I gave the drawing further consideration.
Then, an idea that was funny, had a connection to a child and parent's life experience, (this is important) and that worked really well with the drawing, came into my head.
It was this - The puffin was being followed. Not by something nasty, but by three baby gulls, who were imitating him for a silly game as he set out on his morning walk. This scenario explained puffin’s quizzical backward glance and at the same time allowed his pomposity to play a part, as the baby gulls were busy puncturing it.
“Ah, so that's what was going on!”
The idea developed into a book called 'Don’t Copy Me!' In which three baby gulls follow Little Puffin around, copying everything he does. The book documents his attempts to get them to stop. (I sent the photographer a copy btw).
But a picture book idea doesn't have to come from a fully formed drawing. I often find that my best ideas involve a character and a scenario, both of which arrive on the same wave of inspiration. Often as more of a concept than as a particular narrative or story. A short phrase can be the trigger, in conjunction with a drawing. The phrase can trigger the idea or loose concept, which immediately gets visualised in my head. From that, a character is drawn, roughly at first, and from that character, the character of the story itself emerges. This can all happen in about ten minutes! Then the real work starts...
My Baby Owl character, the star of my 'I’m Not' series (I’m 'Not Cute!', 'I’m Not Scared' et al) arrived in this way. His sixth book, 'I’m Not Reading!' is out now, folks. . .
I'll document Baby Owl’s journey from fluffy blob to much loved character for you another time if I'm allowed. I’ve gone on too long as it is. . .
I hope that the above has provided some useful insight into the picture book creation process as pertains to me at least. My approach may resonate with somebody, somewhere anyway. So if you are that somebody, or even if you're not, do let me know your thoughts.
At least you now know that a picture is sometimes worth a thousand words, though three to four hundred, with the action split dynamically over twelve spreads (self ends) is preferable.
Cheers,
Jonathan
You can find out more about Jonathan Allen at his website and his blog (just click).
Not too long ago, I was in the picture book section of my
local book shop, when I overheard a conversation where two people were
discussing the cost of picture books. One lady was saying that she didn’t buy
picture books anymore, because they were too expensive. She
then went on to compare the price of a hardback picture book at £9.99 to an adult
novel she was buying, at £7.99.
And perhaps at first glance it can look like you’re getting
a rough deal. After all, an adult novel can easily be over 100,000 words. It
feels thick and chunky in your hand, something to really get your teeth into.
On the other hand, some picture books don’t even get their word count into the
hundreds.Some don’t have any words at
all. And yet the price points of adult and children’s books are often very
similar.
But they are value for money. They really are. And here’s
why.
Often, you’re getting the combined talents of two people, a
writer and an illustrator. Yes, of course, there are very talented people who
can do both (such as James Mayhew, who wrote and illustrated one of the current favourite books in our house, Boy), many others, myself included, who can’t (my picture book, below, is illustrated by Dubravka Kolanovic). When people ask me if I
illustrate my books, or ever think about illustrating my books, I generally snort
with laughter, before replying; ‘No. Because I want people to buy them!’ I know
where my talents lie. I can draw passable shapes, but nothing nearly as
impressive as professional illustrators can, who make the books look so
wonderfully appealing and bring the words I’ve written to life. Writers often
need illustrators, and vice-versa – their talents combining together to make
wonderful picture books. Therefore, there are two people who need paying for
their work. And, quite frankly, it’s unrealistic to expect to get that for next
to nothing.
Then, there is the printing issue. Full colour, beautiful
picture books, cost money to produce, whereas novels are generally just black
and white print which is cheaper.
The other argument is the time issue. People argue that
picture books take a matter of minutes to read, while novels engage a reader
for hours and therefore are much better value for money. But how often do you
read a novel more than once? Of course, some people go back and re-read
favourites, but generally not back to back, like children do with favourite picture
books. In our house, the same book can be requested three or four times a day.
A beloved picture book will get read and enjoyed over, and over again, sometimes on a daily basis, for
years and years.
Plus picture books are excellent teaching devices, a way for
children to learn without knowing they’re learning. There’s so much to gain
from talking about the pictures and the words, and important lessons to learn from them. Picture
books form the foundation upon which a love of reading, and books, will
grow.
And all that, to me, is excellent value for money.
After last week’s detailed description of a
one-off picture book’s journey to press, I thought I would write about another
much faster type of picture book story-writing. I mean writing to fit a
detailed brief for a book that is paper-engineered and could be described as
toy-related. Some blog-readers may get the opportunity to do this, and it
requires a different way of thinking.
Here’s an example. A couple of weeks ago I
got an urgent email. Such projects are almost always on a short schedule and if
you don’t like working fast, never take them on. Be aware that such projects
are fee-based and do not carry royalties, so do not consider the work if this
is an issue for you.
The project was to write stories for two
carousel books. These are books with a story joined to a section that folds
around to create a kind of dollshouse scene (I’ll attach a picture showing a
carousel book. It’s not mine but it shows the concept).
The books I was commissioned to write
already had subjects – a princess castle and a tropical fairy garden. The
paper-engineered carousel part of the project was already being designed, and
the story part of the book was already laid out in sections, with a rough word
count. There were four spreads, and there could be no more or less.
Added to this, each story had to have six
characters that could be made into pressout play figures, along with scope for
smaller characters and objects that could be added to the carousel scene.
Where to start?
There is a basic vital principle I always
bear in mind. This kind of book is going to be played with. The child who gets
it is going to use it to create imaginary stories of their own. It’s my job to
help them – to prompt them into doing exactly that.
I sit in a quiet room and clear my head of
everything. Then I concentrate and start to ‘see’ characters in my head and I
watch them interacting and doing whatever it is they seem to want to do. This
sounds quite mad, but I am effectively mentally ‘playing’ as a child would do.
A narrative emerges. It must have movement,
action and speech. It must be a scenario a child will want to play.
I would approach a text the same way in
something as tightly-controlled as a sound book. This type of book has to have
a certain number of sounds, which are varied enough to make playing fun. The
stories must work hard. They must give lots of opportunity to push the sound
buttons, and I would really feel I’d done my job properly if I created
characters that a child could take and use in their own imaginary stories,
using the sounds in their own way. For this to happen the characters must be
quite simple but have something fun about them – a name, a repeated speech
phrase or a particular feature perhaps.
Ok, this type of work is not poetry or high
art. But that doesn’t mean sentences should not be well-constructed, that there
should be good story pace. The story must be well-formed and work if read out
loud. It must always work well out
loud, which means paying close attention to the rhythm of the sentences (necessarily
assuming common speech patterns).
A lot of this type of work is now being
done in-house by editors, and all too often it’s being done badly because it’s
not just a question of ‘putting down words’ to fill a space. It’s about
visualizing the child using the book before you put a single word down on
paper. Then it’s about reading out loud to get the sentences right.
Just because such a text might never be up
for a literary prize, and just because it takes days not years, it does not
mean it should not be the best possible use of words.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) has just finished. For the last 18 days authors of all kinds of books have been speaking in Charlotte Square gardens to audiences of all ages.
I was delighted to be taking part in the festival again this year. I ran a workshop on Writing for Children and quite a few who attended it were keen on writing picture books.
Hamish McHaggis and Writing for Children on display at EIBF
After the workshop there is the opportunity for people to come along and speak to me and ask questions that they may not have managed to ask during the workshop, also perhaps to buy a book and get it signed.
I often end up at a signing table in the adult bookshop tent, as the workshop is for adults. But I would prefer to be signing books in the Children's Bookshop tent. That is because one of the things I always try to encourage aspiring children's writers to do is to spend time in the children's bookshop, where there is always such a
wonderful variety of children's books. It is so important if you want to write picture books, or any books for children, that you get to know as much about them and about what has been published, as you can. The bookshop is the perfect browsing ground.
Diana Hendry, Catherine Rayner, Nicola Morgan and Vivian French
Here are some of the authors involved in this year's Schools Programme, gathered in the yurt.
The children's programme at the EIBF is so varied with events for tiny tots to teenagers and from the beginning of the second week there is also the Schools Programme, for school groups only, as most Scottish children are back to school by then.
The famous, and the not so famous, rub shoulders before and after events in the wonderful Author's Yurt, complete with coloured rugs and scattered cushions and a delightful supply of food and drink -soft drinks and strong coffee to calm nerves and a glass of wine, in the evenings, to celebrate and relax after an event.
Julia Donaldson
But on the very last day, when it is all but over, the book festival is given over to children for the School Gala Day. General public are not allowed in on that day and buses line the roads around the square as school children stream into the balloon festooned walkways and excited chatter and squeals of delight are heard as they wait to enter the magical tents.
The yurt is much quieter on the Gala day but I still love it. Only children's authors allowed. Julia Donaldson, Simon Puttock, Cate James and Theresa Breslin were some of those there on Gala Day this year, and it was also great to catch up with Joan Lingard as she was waiting to go and meet her young audience.
The bookfest staff were all dressed up as Wally for the occasion and ready for fun.
Julia Donaldson was on first thing in the morning and as I came along the board walk I almost bumped into the Gruffalo - He's really tall and all brown fur and purple prickles! But just as well he and our Hamish McHaggis never quite met!
Hamish McHaggis with Sally and Linda
Sally Collins, the Hamish illustrator, and I were doing a event based around the latest Hamish McHaggis book, the Great Glasgow Treasure Hunt, and we had a large tent filled with almost 300 children, their teachers, and some parents, too. We had at least 5 different school groups some had come from as far as Falkirk, Fife and Glasgow and some were from Edinburgh, too.
Hamish made an appearance but soon had to go trotting back to find his Whirry Bang to have a little snack, once he had rescued his picnic basket from Sally who had been showing it to the children.
We also had some rather large and colourful mini beasts which some of the children were holding while we investigated which one is hidden in each Hamish book. It is one of the things that we kept as a little secret, never mentioning them in any of the books until this latest one! It is fun to hear how some children spotted that there was a mini beast on each page much faster than their parents did.
Sally and I also showed off the newest addition the Hamish family. It is a cuddly Hamish toy which we hope will be on sale in time for Christmas this year. He is very soft and cuddly.
After the event we got the chance to meet some of the children as they came to get their Hamish books signed.
All too soon the book festival is over and soon the yurt and all the tents will be gone and Charlotte Square which will be magically turned back to a quiet leafy square of grass and trees, and looking as if there had never been anything else there.......................... until next year!
www.lindastrachan.com Linda Strachan is the award winning author of over 60 books for all ages, from picture books such as the Hamish McHaggis series, to teen novels and writing handbook Writing For Children
