Too Much Plot! by Susie Day

Reader, I have a problem.

I’m addicted to plot. I might start a new 9-12 book with all good intentions of a strong, clear A thread (sparky 11-year-old Billie wants to find out more about her mum, who died when she was five, and discovers more than she planned) and a fun B plot (she’s starting at secondary school). But then I go and give her brothers. Three big taking-up-space brothers. One’s getting married and wants her to be bridesmaid, so she decides to be their wedding planner. One’s having an existential crisis about packing lettuces in a Tesco warehouse (his first of six jobs, all of which he gets fired from). One’s struggling with being the school rugby star and all the girls who want to nibble his ear on the bus, when actually he’s not all that fussed.

Then there are her three new school friends: the one who can’t work out how to fit in at Big School either, the desperately anxious one, and the one who is apparently intent on making Billie’s life miserable (though , of course, it turns out she might be quite miserable too). And then there’s funny, self-sacrificing Dad who runs a greasy spoon... and lovely Miss Eagle at school whose Hero project sets Billie off on the quest to find out about her mum... and Dr Paget and Dr Skidelsky who live over the road...
 

It’s a lovely book, I think. It’s funny and serious, heartfelt and bittersweet and ultimately very kind - like the Pea’s Book series it spins off from. But it's a bit full. Pleasantly stuffed, but perhaps better if it didn't have that fifth roast potato. Too long to be class readers, except for an extremely patient class (and teacher!).

Could we pare it down next time, perhaps? asks my editor, gently, every time. I definitely will! I say gamely. And then I write the next one about two families blending together, and not just one family secret but a whole Year Seven classful of them, and a school performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that needs to be saved, and one entrepreneurial mum who runs her own company called Fairy Dusters, and one who might be a witch with magic powers (at least her daughter hopes so)...

The trouble is, I always write about big families; the sort of comfy, mildly chaotic collectives of that I grew up reading about. Noel Streatfeild’s Gemma books, with the effortlessly musical Robinsons. Arthur Ransome’s Swallows, and Amazons, and Ds. Enough ordinariness for there to be one character I could decide was like me, with all the oddball quirks and special talents to be just that little bit better.

But I never want to short-change any one character. Sketched-in background adults who occasionally mumble, ‘You’ll be late for school,’ are not for me. Same for siblings, and friends. I want there to be something for everyone to be doing, not just the protagonist. And that means an A plot, and a B plot, and then the entire alphabet.

I suspect, in part, it’s because I’m not all that fussed on heroes. Buffy’s great - but I care a lot more about Willow and the rest of the Scoobies. I always preferred Sally to Darrell in Malory Towers. I grew up shy; I think as I always saw myself as a sidekick - useful, even necessary, but never in the uncomfortable spotlight.

But I’ve resolved - since this is a New Year - to knock this nonsense on the head. Next, I’m writing a picture book, and there is no room in my 500ish words to cram in dozens of sub-plots. It’s the perfect creative exercise for me to learn how to trim. I’m starting with a cat, and the little girl who chooses him as a kitten to take home. With her brother and sister. And Mum. And Granny and Grandad.

Reader, I still have a problem...

Susie Day - books for kids about families, friendship, feelings and funny stuff
https://susieday.com/
Follow @mssusieday on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

A Grown-Up's Christmas in Wales by Susie Day

Do you have an obligatory festive read? A book that you read every winter, or that the family share together?

When I was small, my mother would read us the ten daily stories leading to the 25th from Enid Blyton’s  A Christmas Book (since republished, along with other seasonal offerings, as Christmas Stories). I was especially fond of the Yule Log (if disappointed year after year that it was not the chocolate kind), and mistletoe-victim Balder the Beautiful, which gave my small self angsty pangs and a bit of a crush.

More recently, I’ve tried to reread Susan Cooper’s magnificent The Dark Is Rising - a classic I only read after my sister took me to an amazing theatre production when I was a teen - on Christmas Eve, usually leaving it far too late to get past the first few chapters. Then there’s a slight cheat: The Children of Green Knowe is a book I find hard going (despite loving others in the series as a child) but the BBC 1980s adaptation is the annual soundtrack to putting up the tree, wobbly soundtrack and all.

I write for children; it’s not unusual for me to read - and reread - children’s fiction. But my nostalgic urge come December to recreate something - an atmosphere, a feeling - from that time of my small angst-pang self feels like something more akin to homesickness, or its Welsh cousin, hiraeth: a longing for a past place, perhaps one that has never been. I feel it whenever Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas twiddles along and revives my strange kidlike adoration for ‘eyes full of twinkles and smiles,’ and complete obliviousness to the ENTIRE REST OF THE SONG.

I am reminded of my niece who, on her first Christmas of ‘knowing’ (perhaps a year younger than might have been ideal), declared mournfully, ‘It’s not the same.’ I think I want it to be the same.

And of course it’s not the same. Our families grow and shrink and grow around us; the places we call home shift. New traditions come and moss the gaps. Not the same, but good, and ours, and before long beloved.

So this year - when I feel as human beings we’ve all done quite a lot of ‘knowing,’ maybe a bit more than we’d have liked - I think I’ll read something new.


Susie Day - books for kids about families, feelings, friendship and funny stuff
https://susieday.com/
Follow @mssusieday on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

My New Assistant by Susie Day

A few months ago, surrounded by piles of poorly managed notebooks, plot scribbles on the backs of envelopes, and the inevitable jungly tangle of receipts shoved into a folder optimistically marked 'tax return', I decided: now was the moment to accept it. I had to acquire an assistant.

It's a question every author faces at a certain point in their career. I write books. But I also reply to emails, create workshops for schools, organise my events calendar, send invoices, run a website - all on top of the day job. Sometimes it's a bit much.

My assistant's name is Pan. (Short for Pantalaimon.)

He's quite stern about my use of the internet during working hours.

He guards my pens.

And my notes. Sometimes in a way that means I can't read them, presumably as an exciting memory test.

He's always so appreciative when I read my drafts aloud.

Should I ever lack plot ideas, he offers me The Mystery of the Muddy Pawprints on the Bedsheets.

He's basically just very helpful.

Sooo helpful.

The very best assistant ever.

I'm not quite sure what I did without him.

(All credit for his magical ways goes to his owner Fliss, who is equally inspiring. But who doesn't sit on the desk quite so much.)

Susie Day - books for kids about families, friendship, feelings and funny stuff
https://susieday.com/
Follow @mssusieday on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

Curry and frits - Anne Rooney

This weekend was a Bank Holiday weekend, and I actually had a holiday! That might sound odd to non-writers. The whole point of weekends and Bank Holidays is not to work. But for writers, they are useful catching-up time, when editors are not at their desks, sending out hassling emails and beckoning to deadlines to hurry up and come closer. What to do with a whole, long weekend off? Run away!


I took the bus to Oxford and had a lovely long tea and bookish chat with another children's writer, Susie Day. She is outgoing sys admin for the Girls Heart Books joint blog and I am incoming sys admin. That was the excuse.

But really we just had a good natter in the upstairs of the Turl Street Kitchen. It's a great place for writers who want to lounge around. The downstairs is all smart and full of people who own jumpers without holes in. The upstairs is shabby chic with emphasis on the shabby - disintegrating mismatched sofas, scattered around a high-ceilinged Georgian sitting room. It's occupied mostly by students (and children's writers).

Occasionally a real member of the public wanders in and perches nervously on the edge of a sofa, drinks their tea quickly and leaves. They don't know how to lounge properly. They probably have shopping to do or important meetings to go to. Susie and I discussed the merits of writing teen Neanderthal romance and stretched one cup of tea/coffee to an indecently long stay.

Refreshed and ready for the next bus, I went off to stay with another children's writer, Mary Hoffman. She makes a fine dinner, and is an excellent hostess. We drank prosecco and talked all evening to a lovely man whose name I can't spell who used to be a literature professor. More bookish chat, but no Neanderthals this time.

The next day I had lunch with my Big Bint in another favourite Oxford haunt, the Jericho Cafe - and discovered yet again that if I type Jericho into my phone it defaults to Lesbian. That cafe is quickly becoming known as the Lesbian Cafe and they will never know why... Then BB's partner showed me his wonderful college library (Lincoln College), with its chandeliers and stunning arched windows. He wins the 'I have the best library' contest. Big dose of library-envy. (Follow the link to that photo and you will immediately feel compelled to apply to Lincoln College, Oxford.) The library trip might have been revenge, as I had just shown BB my Natural History Museum Library card, a recent acquistion of which I am inordinately proud. To deal with the library-envy I had to spend lots of time and money in Blackwell's buying books.

Back at Mary's we had curry and beer and bookish chat and gossip, messed about with her website, and poked in an editorial fashion at the anthology she's editing.

More of the same the next day, plus a visit to fritillary day at Ducklington. A splendidly rural English event, this consists of walking round a field looking at the flowers. The flowers are probably pretty surprised by this. There they are, living quietly in their field, not provoking anyone, and suddenly hordes of humans galumph in and stare at them. If I were a fritillary, I think I'd be pretty miffed about it. But the good people of Oxfordshire don't give a fig for the rights of fritillaries and the frits had to endure it.

... and home. Working on the bus to and from Oxford is a total of seven hours' work. Add the writerly chat and the desultory editorial and website-poking and I did more than a full day's work over that so-called weekend off. But at least it felt like a holiday.

I guess writers don't really do holidays. We just do the same things in a different place and with a holiday attitude. So, what did *you* do on your holiday?

Anne Rooney (aka Stroppy Author)
PS - I don't mean to imply that Susie doesn't own any jumpers without holes in. But I don't.