Openings with a Promise – the Emotional Journey of Your Character • Natascha Biebow

 
I love it when as a writer you realize that other creative people face similar struggles or challenges with their craft. 






Like when I attended the SCBWI conference in LA last summer, I was heartened to hear how Drew Daywalt, the author of the NY Times bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit, waited six years for his agent to find a publisher who ‘got’ his book and wanted to publish it.

 

The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers

Or like how Jon Klassen of I Want My Hat Back fame was stuck because:

“… I had a problem in that I didn’t like drawing characters. I like drawing scenery and inanimate objects and I especially liked it back then. The challenge of making a piece where the subject wasn’t a living thing was really fun, and I liked how quiet the effect was.”

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

I recently received a gift. It was one of my favourite kinds of books – the story of a fellow writer. As I savoured the book, its pages, beautifully designed windows into E.B. White’s life and writing, I realized a few things:

Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet

• E.B. White kept a journal and he finished each entry by asking himself a question that he could think about as he was drifting off to sleep.

from Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

 

from Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

Yes! This is such a good technique – to mull the questions of the day, of the story, of a stuckness that becomes unstuck in the subconscious of slumber. I love to do that too!

• In his column One Man’s Meat for Harper’s Magazine, he wrote in 1982 about the influence of moving to a farm in Maine, where “confronted by new challenges, surrounded by new acquaintances – including the characters in the barnyard who were later to appear in Charlotte’s Web – I was suddenly seeing, feeling, and listening as a child sees, feels and listens”.

from Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

I thought about this. As I read on . . .

• It took E.B. White a year of revisions to settle on the iconic opening for Charlotte’s Web. 

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams,
published 1952

In Some Writer!, Sweet includes images of White's original manuscripts, complete with crossings-out and musings in the margins. 

I learned that E.B. White tried at least six different tacks to nail the opening of his most famous book. First:

“Charlotte was a grey spider who lived in the doorway of a barn.”

Then: “I shall speak first of Wilbur.”

Then: “A barn can have a horse in it, and a barn can have a cow in it, and a barn can have hens scratching the chaff and swallows flying in and out through the door – but if a barn hasn’t got a pig in it, it is hardly worth talking about.”

After a year, White wrote: “At midnight, John Arable pulled his boots on, lit a lantern, and walked out the hoghouse.”

Next, he cut to the action: “Where’s Papa going with that hand ax?”

Which was shortened to: “Where’s Papa going with that ax?”

opening chapter from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

I was struck by this journey to find the way into the story. The story was there all along, wasn’t it, but it was only when White cut to the emotional core of the characters’ emotional journey and told it like child might experience it that it felt right.

In previous blogs about creating compelling openings and using “show, don’t tell”, I wrote about the importance of:

• showing readers through the character’s body language, action and dialogue

• including the answers to the questions who, what and where to create a compelling opening

• clear character motivation – why?

• creating vivid, detailed scenes

But, connecting these elements with

• the promise of the characters’ emotional journey and

• “seeing, feeling, and listening” like a child

is what will really hook readers into the story and get them to keep turning the pages.

When we read the opening line of Charlotte’s Web, these elements come together almost effortlessly. But the weren’t effortless at all . . .! 

E.B. White with his beloved dog

Wow, some writer!

  

________________________

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 Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, editor of numerous award-winning children’s books, and Regional Advisor (Chair) of SCBWI British Isles. 

Show Don't Tell by Natascha Biebow

Often editors say: ‘Show – don’t tell’. 

But what does that really mean?

You know how sometimes someone tells you something funny that happened to them the other day and it sounds flat? It just isn’t as funny any more – because you really had to be there. Similarly, when writers tell readers about what is happening in the story, it is not as exciting as actually being there with the characters. 



A really great picture book story takes readers on a shared journey. If the author creates vivid scenes with strong characterization, vivid settings and an engrossing plot, readers will be so entranced in the narrative journey that they won’t want the book to end.

So how can you make readers really care about what is going on in your story? Once you have a strong premise, memorable characters and a sound plot, what you need is to tell your story so that you take your readers right into the heart of your narrative. 

Using showing . . .

Instead of telling readers that your character is sad or stuck or whatever, show them through the character’s body language, action and dialogue. 

Don’t rush, and be concise and detailed in your descriptions, transporting readers right into the heart of the scene. Create each moment, so readers can clearly imagine what is going on as if they were there too. Use:

The key to all this is to use details! Be specific. 

Picture these scenes:

It's getting late, the clouds are rolling in and the wind has picked up. Mr Bear and his family decide it's time to snuggle up inside their tent. In the following scene from Mr Bear's Holiday, Debi Gliori, doesn't tell readers what it's like in the tent. She shows us the bear family's reactions through their senses: Baby Bear can see stars through the roof (the tent has been eaten up by moths and is holey), Mrs Bear can feel the wind, and they can hear a strange noise outside . . . 

From Mr Bear's Holiday by Debi Gliori

In this scene from Lunchtime, Rebecca Cobb shows us through the little girl's body language and action that she's not at all enamoured by the idea of lunch:

From Lunchtime by Rebecca Cobb

In Don't Panic, Annika!, when the wind suddenly blows the door shut, locking Annika's family out of the house, Juliet Clare Bell doesn't tell readers that Annika is scared, she shows it: Annika's mouth opens and no words come out . . . and she clutches Moose's paws tightly.

From Don't Panic, Annika! by J Clare Bell and Jennifer E. Morris

In another example, Mouse has been trying everything he can think of to get Bear to celebrate his birthday, but Bear does not like presents, birthday cards, balloons, parties or birthdays AND he's very, very busy today (tidying the house, etc.). When Mouse sneaks a cake into Bear's house, Bonny Becker uses dialogue to show that Bear has had a change of heart, leading to a turning point in the plot:

"No one had ever made Bear a birthday cake before. 
Even so, Bear started to say, "I am very, very busy today" – 
but then he didn't. "Chocolate is my favourite," he admitted. 

From A Birthday for Bear by Bonny Becker & Kady Macdonald Denton

 

Of course, in the picture book art form, author/illustrators have the advantage in that they can easily add another layer to the art of showing, conveying a level of emotion and humour in the action through the pictures. 

In this scene from Olivia Forms a Band, Ian Falconer jokes that: "... when she marched in, everyone agreed that Olivia did sound like more than one person."   (The running gag is that Olivia wants to be a whole band and her mum argues that technically a 'band' means more than one person, and sounds like one as well).

From Olivia Forms a Band by Ian Falconer

And in this climactic scene from Penguin by Polly Dunbar, the main character's dialogue and body language combine to express his frustration at the fact that the Penguin doesn't respond to anything he does. Illustrated face-on with the lion and gormless penguin, this picture beautifully shows the escalation of the plot.

From Penguin by Polly Dunbar

Remember, it is stronger if the characters do rather than just say. This is because the reader’s attention wanders if nothing engaging is going on. Long-winded narratives or explanations are boring. Readers like to come to their own conclusions, to fill in the gap. It is more intriguing to see a character show their feelings or what they desire. After all, would you rather someone told you that the Alps are beautiful or . . . 

. . . take you "hiking" so you can experience it for yourself?

_________________________________________________

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 the NEW small-group coaching courses!

Natascha is also the author of Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, editor of numerous award-winning children’s books, and Regional Advisor (Chair) of SCBWI British Isles.  www.blueelephantstoryshaping.com