Whose book is this anyway? Lari Don

This month, I’ve been working with editorial notes on two different books – a novel and a picture book - and I’ve noticed slight differences in how I’m responding to those notes.

Obviously with any editorial notes, there’s the immediate emotional punch of ‘oh no, she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t work, she didn’t understand it, my story is RUINED!’ Then reality kicks in and I remember that the book always works in the end, and that editors are A Good Thing.

So I settle down and consider every single comment, suggestion and request, and work out how to respond, ie how much to change, how much to compromise, how much to defend the story as it stands.

And I’ve realised that, while equally open to every comment, I do seem to have a different attitude depending on whether we’re working on a novel or a picture book.

A novel feels like my vision, my story. So I will usually be happy to tweak, and often, if I agree, I will make major changes, but if I disagree, I will instead explain why I'd prefer not to change the direction of the story.

However, a picture book never feels like just my story, it feels like a team effort with the editor, illustrator and designer. So I’m much more likely to throw out a cherished sentence or scene in a picture book, much more likely to change direction entirely, in order to create the text that will support the best possible pictures.

I don’t want to give the impression (particularly not to my editors!) that I ignore editorial advice in novels or that I don’t feel passionate about the words in my picture books, just that I seem to approach them with a slightly different attitude. The novel is my story, and I’m happy to take advice about the best way to tell it, but the picture book is OUR story, and my words are only one part of that. So, my response to notes is based on that difference.

Whatever age group or genre I’m writing for, it’s always a bracing combination of illuminating, positive and painful to see my still soft and malleable draft story through someone else’s critical eyes. But it’s always worth doing!

I genuinely believe that books are BETTER when they have been worked on together by a talented editor and a confident writer.

However, I’ve realised this spring that even though I will weigh up each comment carefully, I clearly lean slightly more towards accepting the suggestions when redrafting a picture book, and slightly more towards proving my case for the original idea when redrafting a novel.

I wonder if any other writers feel that they respond differently to editorial notes depending on the story, the project, or even (!) the editor?

Right. Back to those notes and my responses...
 

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

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Why writing novels is a bit like running in the rain – Lari Don

I run. Not often enough, or fast enough, or far enough, but I do run occasionally. Running gives me useful time to think about stories, as well as making me feel better about the hours I spend sitting on my bottom at the keyboard.

But there is another connection between running and writing. Motivating myself to get up and go out for a run is quite similar to motivating myself to write.

No-one makes me run. I don’t enter races. I don’t have an immediate goal for my running. I’m not answerable to anyone else for running. I don’t have to tell anyone I’m going out for a run, or prove afterwards that I did run. No-one is checking that I’m running. If I decided not to bother going for a run, no-one would know. And if I decided during a run that I just couldn’t be bothered running any more, and sat down in the middle of the path and sang a little song instead (or simply walked home at a comfortable pace, nibbling chocolate bars on the way) no-one would know, no-one would care and no-one would be able to criticise.

Except me. I’d know, and I’d feel guilty.

All of which is remarkably similar to writing a novel.

Novels take a VERY LONG TIME to write. The deadlines start off ridiculously far away. And if I didn’t sit down and get on with it, if I chose to sit about singing, nibbling chocolate, or even going out for a run rather than writing, no-one would know or notice, until it was far too late.

Except me. I’d know, and I’d feel guilty.

So, even though I don’t run as often and as far and as fast I should, I still do it.

And, even though I suspect I don’t sit down and write as often or as fast as I should, I still do it. Even months or years before the deadline, I do it. Regularly, steadily, and moving the story forward all the time.

Why? How do we motivate ourselves to get our writing shoes on and keep pacing through the story, without the urgency of an immediate deadline or an editor at our shoulder?

Is that why so many writers like to tell the world how many words they’ve written each day on Facebook or Twitter? Because otherwise, there is no-one but ourselves to push, encourage, cajole and motivate? Because otherwise, writing a novel is like going out for a run in the rain, in the dark, with no finish line in sight?

I don’t share word counts or small writing victories on social media. I tend to keep that part of my writing fairly quiet and private. But then, I like to run on my own. I don’t like to run in a group. And actually, I’ve always enjoyed running in the rain.

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 22 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website 
Lari’s own blog 
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The Tragedy of the Book Soundtrack - by Clémentine Beauvais

Being of a sarcastic disposition, I'd spent the past few years secretly laughing at the very fashionable trend of writing 'soundtracks' for novels. I'd discovered the concept with Stephenie Meyer (though I know it had been around for a while before), who on her website had denounced Muse as the number one, well, muse, for her glittery vampires.

Since then, I'd seen it appear again and again on various author websites, and I'd done my own snarky theorisation of the emerging craze. A book soundtrack, I'd decided, is a bricolage of the following things:

• Songs that the author really listened to when writing the book.
• Songs that the author really listens to, but not necessarily when writing the book.
• Songs that are more or less linked to the novel, and/or that characters of the novel listen to or identify with. 
• Songs that the author would like us to believe s/he listens to, but which in fact s/he doesn't really care about, but which will add trendiness points to the book and sprinkle it with cool, whereas if the author really put in the songs that s/he actually listens to, it would be an eclectic mix of 1980s pop, teenage-unfriendly cheese, and classical music. 

(Being of a relatively cynical disposition, I sometimes reflected that the fourth bullet point was probably often the most accurate.)

Anyway, book soundtracks are generally made up of ten to fifteen songs, and they wait for you on the author website there - wait for you, the reader, to come and read them and... erm... do what with them exactly? 

This is a chin-scratchingly mysterious riddle. What am I supposed to do, o music-savvy author, with your violently fashionable soundtrack? Listen to it while reading the book? Listen to it before reading the book? After? Listen to bits of it here and there? Some soundtracks even state which chapter corresponds to which song, steady on, this is serious business. What do I do, listen to the thing on loop while reading the chapter? It's definitely going to become my favourite song that way (not). Anyway, I don't even like listening to music while I read. 

In short, I'd been absolutely snarky and completely blasé about the hilarious trend of book sountracks, and I would go 'pffsha!' and even 'pfff!' like a good French person everytime the ludicrous phenomenon was mentioned to me. 

(I hope I used enough foreshadowing for you to guess that this blog post is actually following the story arc of a classical tragedy and that my hubris regarding the dreaded thing is going to lead to my own personal catastrophe.)

Catastrophe struck a few weeks ago, when my (French) editor innocently emailed me the following, re: YA novel coming out in a few months' time:

Oh yes I'll also need your soundtrack asap please.

Me:

Er what?

Him:

All novels in this list have soundtracks at the beginning, with songs that have inspired the book, etc.

[I'd previously published with them but not in this specific YA list]

Me:

Ah ok well unfortunately I don't know any songs. In fact I don't know what a 'song' is. I think I vaguely heard someone talk about that concept once but I've forgotten what it means, and I've Googled it and nothing comes up. So I'm sorry but it's not going to be possible. 

Editor:

Write that soundtrack.

 Me:

Not today, I'm going snail-hunting.

Editor:

Write it.

Me: 

You know what, you do it and I'll credit you in the acknowledgements.  

 Editor:

No.

O! How ironic Fate can be, who knits our destiny exactly as we wish she did not! Wouldst that she were less playful! I was plunged into an abyss of angst. Because I've been a bit dishonest with you. It's not just that I find book soundtracks perfectly ludicrous. It's also that I'm terribly jealous of people who can write them. Because I have a huge musical inferiority complex.

In short, I have a s*** taste in music.

There it is, I've said it. I have no musical taste to speak of. My iTunes library is a dreadful smorgasbord of the most shameful musical creations, or rather noise, from around the world. My worst nightmare is that it should ever get leaked online, condemning me to a life in exile with gouged-out eyes in the manner of another tragic hero whose problem was barely worse than mine.

Following this exchange, I spent three or four hours biting all my nails and thinking of possible solutions to this predicament:

1. Ask my eighteen-year-old sister, who oozes trendiness and is completely made of cool, to write a soundtrack for the novel in exchange for my not mentioning her abundantly Facebook-documented booze nights to the parents. 
2. Resort to the so-called 'undergrad strategy' of sending a corrupt file entitled 'soundtrack.doc' to my editor, and then pretending I'm not gettting any of his emails for two or three days despite being very conspicuously active on Twitter.
3. Resort to the 'Simba' strategy of going away for most of the rest of my life, overstaying my welcome in the home of a smelly warthog and a hysterical meercat.
4. Actually go through my iTunes library and see what I can salvage from the humiliating playlist.

Being of an honest disposition (as well as the aforementioned cynicism and sarcasm), I opted for the last one. I conscientiously went through my iTunes library with a fine-tooth comb, selecting only the socially acceptable songs. Unfortunately it was too fine and nothing came out, so I selected a slightly wider-toothed comb, and this time a dozen songs fell out, which I carefully packaged and sent off to my editor.

Reply:

Oh. Ah. Right. Ah! Erm. Ok.

 Me:

Told you. 

I think he wore mourning clothes for a week after that. But anyway, it's done - the lamest book soundtrack in history will soon be printed on the endpapers of my upcoming YA novel (and no, I'm certainly not posting it here). It is entirely possible that because of it, the publishing house will go bankrupt within two days and trigger inextinguishable fits of laughter throughout France in the process.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at you, author of books which cannot possibly be fully understood without a sountrack. Explain to me how you ever managed to reach that level of cool which I clearly can't attain, and why you do it - what dark hopes are woven into this exercise you clearly devote so much thought to, what we're supposed to do with the music, etc. And can I please hire you next time for this fearsome task.

_____________________________________

Clementine Beauvais writes soundtrack-less books in both French and English. The former are of all kinds and shapes, and the latter, for now, a humour/adventure detective series, the Sesame Seade mysteries. She blogs here about children's literature and academia and is on Twitter @blueclementine.

Why ‘the worst idea ever’ can be useful

Sometimes the worst idea you can think of, is the best way to start filling a plot hole. When I'm writing adventures, I spend a lot of time trapping my characters in impossible situations, then thinking: ‘great trap, but now how do I get them out?’
Sometimes, the perfect answer arrives immediately, so I just keep writing. But sometimes when I’ve trapped my characters in a cave or a basement or another nasty situation, I’m just as stuck and confused as they are.
So what do I do next? If an idea doesn’t arrive overnight like a present from my snoozing imagination, then I sit down the next day with a notebook and I think of the worst possible answer to the question. I write down the things I definitely won’t do. I write down the clichés, the obvious, the boring, the naff and the impossible. And that Worst Ideas list usually leads me in a roundabout way to an answer which will work.
For example, in my first novel First Aid for Fairies And Other Fabled Beasts, I trapped my heroine in a basement, with baddies about to knock down the door and the wooden stairway lying in splinters on the floor because her heavy-hooved friend had just broken it.
And I had no idea how to get her out.
So I started by writing down the worst possible answer: A ladder in the corner.

An Obvious Ladder

(Why is that a rotten answer? Because if there’s a set of stairs into the basement, why would anyone need a ladder as well? Also it’s just too convenient and obvious and boring, and I don’t like making things convenient for my characters.)
Next worst answer: Helen just happens to have a long rope wrapped round her waist. (Why is that a rotten answer? Because unless she has a very good story-shaped reason for having a rope round her waist, that’s even more unlikely than a ladder and very unflattering as well.)
I also detoured through other really naff ideas like a previously unknown fairy godmother turning up to save her, or indeed Helen waking up and it was all a dream.
Then I looked at those first two answers again and started to think about why they didn't work. If it’s not practical for her to take the right object with her, then whatever she needs to escape must already be in the basement. And if it’s not exciting enough for the object she uses to be something you would naturally climb, then let’s have her improvise and use something unlikely. Which is why Helen ends up balancing along the narrow banister of the shattered staircase to get out.
So that’s one of my tactics for getting my characters out of traps. I start by writing the worst possible solutions and use those to sneak up on a more workable solution. By acknowledging why something is obvious or naff or daft, you can sometimes identify elements of the right answer.
It’s almost a Sherlock Holmesian way of working – once you’ve eliminated all the impossible or impossibly naff solutions, whatever snuck into your head while you were sniggering at the silly ideas must be the right answer. Though maybe Sherlock Holmes didn’t snigger…

Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website
Lari’s own blog
Lari on Twitter 
Lari on Facebook

Fizzle and Pop (Author Talks)

By Ruth Symes / Megan Rix

Some authors love giving talks about their books and have a natural talent for it. Others find the whole thing terrifying. I think I’m in the middle, usually when I accept the invitation I like the idea, on the morning of the day I wonder why on earth I ever said yes, love doing the actual talk once I’ve started it, and am happy once it’s done.

There's thousands of horror stories of poor author's travelling for hours, through torrential rain and snow storms, only to find no one's coming to their event, or worse the event organiser has forgotten they were even coming. This did actually happen to me (minus the weather). I was invited back for a second visit to a bookstore at a shopping centre after the first had gone really well – you'd think you’d be safe on a second visit!!! But when I got there I was told sorry we don’t have you down as visiting us and the staff member who arranged it is not here today… Grrr… The only good thing was that when I went to buy a coffee in Debenhams to console myself I was served by the mother of a little boy who’d been very quiet at the previous event. She told me how once they’d got home (he was three) he went tearing round the house with his new book and proceeded to sing the song we’d sang and remembered all the dance moves and wanted to make a Harriet Dancing butterfly which he’d been too shy to do during the actual event.

Sorry sidetrack thought – but what is it with parents of toddlers being so competitive about who can do the best colouring-in and make the best craft flower and then say their child did it????

I've given talks for all different ages from 6 months old to 86 years young. Usually I love doing talks and events around my picture books – but then who wouldn’t like stamping about and growling with a Little Rex puppet at Narberth Festival or butterfly dancing with Dancing Harriet at Wytchwood and Bath Festivals?

This year I took part in ‘Scarefest’ organized by Formby Books to promote my Bella Donna stories and came on stage as an incompetent witch, complete with a broomstick full of fairy lights, who needed the children's help. I was also hobbling about as I’d sprained my ankle the day before.

There must be something in this
cauldron

 My alter ego, Megan Rix, has had more invitations to talk about The Great Escape than I can accept (have to get some writing done after all!) and so Puffin are kindly organizing a promotional tour for my second book in the series ‘Victory Dogs’ from the 29-April - 3 May 2013 with a book signing at my favourite Bedford Watersones on the 4^th, hopefully. They’re my favourite because they always welcome my golden retriever, Traffy, along too and make a big fuss of her. If I can take my dog along to an event I’m happy – she’s a Pets As Therapy dog who’s just about to start doing the Read2Dogs school scheme; a total softy who loves being fussed.  

The biggest and best difference between talks given by myself as Megan Rix and myself as Ruth Symes, from my POV, is that as Megan Rix I have Hannah from Puffin to organize things. With Hannah on board Megan Rix’s talks now come with power-point presentations and lovely photos of some of the amazing search and rescue dogs in WW2 that saved hundreds of lives.

Best of all I like having Hannah there (if I can’t have Traffy) because it means I have someone to laugh with when/if something goes wrong.

Talks by Megan can be arranged via  Hannah.McMillan@uk.penguingroup.com 

Megan's website is www.meganrix.com. Her latest book is The Great Escape

Ruth’s website is www.ruthsymes.com. Ruth’s latest book is Cat Magic reviewed by Ed's Reading Room as 'another magical tale by this fantastic writer.'

My other dog Bella wearing her Halloween wings

Writer - Rewrite! Ruth Symes / Megan Rix

                                   Writer - Rewrite!
                              Ruth Symes / Megan Rix

When I started my writing career I hated re-writing. I wrote so fast it seemed to me that it was a whole lot easier to just write a new book than re-write the one I’d just written – which I was usually more than a teensy bit tired of anyway.

 But then a book or two down the line I started to think rewriting might not be so bad after all. Not just tweaking mind – a proper rewrite.  My opinion of rewriting changed  - due to a few rewriting success stories.

The first thing that happened was that after two books being taken and me thinking I’d cracked it the next 3 or 4 couldn’t find a publishing home. Audrey Adams was an editor at Andersen at the time and she kindly made a few editorial suggestions and the next thing I knew the horror story I’d written about the dangers of blind-dating (this was in 2000 – yikes – so long ago!) had turned into a comedy and Andersen published it as The Mum Trap – still in print 10 years on.

The next re-writing success story is even better:

I’ve always written for both print and broadcast and I wrote a script called ‘Merry Meet’ while on the MA in TV Scriptwriting course at Leicester DeMontfort University. Merry Meet was the pilot for a one hour TV show about an ex-witch trying to lead a normal life without magic. The script was selected by the Screenwriters Festival as one of the scripts they wanted to promote that year. They arranged for it to have a professional script reading and I was presented with a script report on my work.

Editors at publishing houses I realised, as I read the report, even the ones who seem fierce, are really sweet kittens compared to the killer dog savagery of a script report writer. No holds barred – that report went for the jugular and tore my script to shreds.

Afterwards I was told by a surprised producer that it was one of the kinder reports and I shouldn’t be so sensitive about my work – who knew???

Anyway, I started to rewrite Merry Meet and as I did so I began to think about what my lead character might have been like before she gave up magic. Was she born a witch or did she become one? And as I was thinking this I suddenly knew just what she was like as a girl and even what she sounded like.

I finished re-writing my one hour script but at the same time I started writing the first chapter and synopsis of a children’s novel about a young witch.

Piccadilly had just published one of my picture books - about a dinosaur called Little Rex - and so I mentioned this idea I had for a series of books about a witchling called Bella Donna to them, and Ruth Williams, the editor there, thought they might be very interested – but would like it written for a slightly younger market than I’d been thinking of.

More re-writes later ‘Bella Donna’ Book 1 in the Coven Road series was published in October 2010, ‘Too Many Spells’ was published in April 2011 and ‘Witchling’ came out at the beginning of October – a fourth’s just been commissioned.


As for the script – that isn’t doing much - although I might just need to take another look at it. And that blind dating horror idea could be good – maybe it’s time for some more rewriting!

Ruth's website is at www.ruthsymes.com
Megan's website is at www.meganrix.com