Events Vs Stories by Claire Fayers

 I was sorting through my old notebooks recently when I came across a question I'd scribbled down during a workshop:

When does a series of events become a story?

I hadn't written down an answer at the time so I've been trying to answer the question this week. I've read lots of stories - often written by children, but not always - where the main character wakes up, gets out of bed, goes out, talks to someone in the street, carries on to school or work, has lunch, fights a dragon, discovers a haunted mansion, comes home etc etc. The individual events may be exciting, but there's no sense of a story unfolding.

E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel wrote: "The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died and then the queen died of grief is a plot."

I hate to disagree with E.M. Forster but I don't think his first example is a story. It's a pair of events. The second example feels far more like a story to me, although I'd really like to know who the main character is, given that both the characters mentioned so far are dead. Which makes me think I really need to reread Aspects of the Novel to find out exactly what Mr Forster was getting at.

For me, a story needs to have a main character I can identify with, a sense of causality from one event to the next, and a character arc where the main character becomes a different person through the events of the story. The king died in mysterious circumstances and then the furious and grief-stricken queen set out to discover the identity of the murderer. That sounds a bit more like a story.

But I'm already thinking of exceptions. What's the character arc in 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'? 

(A good friend of mine, by the way, regards this book as the most terrible example of negligent parenting.)

Come to think of it, sometimes the point of the story is that the character is unable to change, and that becomes their tragedy. So a revised definition is in order. 

A story requires a main character the audience can identify with, a sense of causality from one event to the next, and the events challenge the character to grow and change.

Is that closer, do you think? Is there anything else a story needs?

Claire Fayers

www.clairefayers.com

Ways to Make your Writing Sing and Other Thoughts on Editing by Jess Butterworth

My writing goes through many drafts before I’m ready to show it to anyone. After all, as Roald Dahl said, ‘good writing is essentially rewriting.’ I’ve eased up on this in my workshops with other writers because with them I’m in a safe environment where our goal is to help each other create, but everyone else has to wait a long time before they’re allowed a peek at my work.

I began Running on the Roof of the World on an MA, alongside feedback from my creative writing tutors and peers. By the time my agent read it, the book had already been through eleven drafts (and it was about to go through many more).

Starting book two without that same MA support and safety net was scary, but after finishing one book I knew I was equipped with the tools to write another, which made it liberating too. Step by step, I finished a messy first draft and shaped that into a story.

Now I’m at the stage where I want to ensure my writing is the best it could possibly be, before I share it with my publisher. I’m editing, editing and editing.

Throughout this process I’ve written myself lists as reminders of everything I know and am learning. This one is inspired by children’s author, Steve Voake.

Ways to Make your Writing Sing

1.     Are the verbs doing the hard work they should be? For example, ‘he grabbed the keys,’ is more effective than ‘he quickly picked up the keys.’  

2.     Are there unnecessary filter words? ‘Tom slams his fist down,’ is often more immediate than ‘I see Tom slam his fist down.’

3.     Show don’t Tell. Allow the reader to feel what the character is feeling. Instead of saying that she feels shy, describe the body language or movement that might demonstrate it.

4.     Is every sentence revealing something about character or moving the story forward? Unintentional repetitions?

5.     Use the Active, not Passive voice. In an active sentence the subject is doing the action: ‘John chases Paul.’ In a passive sentence the subject is acted upon: ‘Paul is being chased by John.’  

Jess Butterworth 

@J_T_Butterworth 

Punctuation - I Love You ... ? ! by Joan Lennon

Back in 2010, a number of us stated which was our favourite punctuation mark, expressed in the form of discreet enthusiasm right up to the point of offering to marry said mark.  It would be interesting to know if we have remained faithful or if new favourites have slipped in - five years is a long time in a literary relationship ...  (And yes, I still like to put a space between the last letter and the ellipsis, even though I know it will be taken at copy edit stage ...)  And, just to add some new flavours to the spice rack, I give you (courtesy of Mental Floss UK website) - 

13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using

(Click on the image to see it bigger.)

So, what do you think?  Any of these tickle your fancy - fill a gap - do what nothing else quite can?  Or do you have new punctuation marks of your own to offer the world?  Let us know!  (And I mean that sincerely.)


Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
Silver Skin.

Big Words or Little Words? Vocabulary in Children's Books by Emma Barnes

I was at the Headingley LitFest during a question-time on children's books. A children's writer in the audience asked the Sunday Times book critic Nicolette Jones whether it was OK to have long words in a children's book – or should he keep it simple?

I can't remember exactly what Nicolette said to this but it was something along the lines of “it depends”. Which is the only sensible answer to give, really. It depends on the book. It depends on what the writer is trying to do.

It's not actually something I've heard children's writers discuss much: vocabulary. Unless you are writing for a reading scheme, say, we write what we write, as the muse directs (or so we like to think)! But shortly afterwards I came across two different perspectives on the subject, from two of my favourite children's writers.

The first was Judith Kerr. In her memoir, Judith's Kerr's Creatures, she explained that, inspired by Dr Seuss of Green Eggs and Ham fame, she deliberately limited the words used in Mog the Forgetful Cat.

“I determined that, like Dr Seuss, I would use a vocabulary of no more than 250 words in the book about Mog, and I have done this with all my picture books since, with the exception of Mog in the Dark, which...has a vocabulary of only just over fifty. I also determined never, ever to put something in the text that the child could already tell from the pictures. Why should they struggle to read something they already knew?”

(Judith Kerr's Creatures, p86)

If Judith Kerr says it's so, it must be so – because Mog is one of the most brilliant picture books of our times. And the interesting thing about Mog is that it is not a book children typically use to learn to read. It is a picture book their parents read with them (my guess is that for many Mog fans, by the time they are learning to read themselves they will know Mog's story by heart.) So it's not just that Judith Kerr created a good “easy to read” book for beginner readers – it's rather that she created one of the most loved of all picture books, regardless of word count. She was able to create a great story which happened to use very simple language.

Another of my favourite writers took a different approach.  Eric Thompson created the Magic Roundabout (both books and TV scripts). His family recalled:

“Once a lady wrote to him complaining that he used too many long words in The Magic Roundabout and how were children meant to understand them? He got out the Oxford English Dictionary and wrote back using all the longest and most difficult words he could find, like 'palimpsest' and 'oxymoron' (which sounds rude but isn't). He also wrote a strongly worded letter to a mother who had smacked her little boy for calling his sister a 'mollusc'."

(Phyllida, Emma and Sophie Thompson, introduction to The Adventures of Dougal)

And he was right.  There is a huge joy for kids in the use of language, even if you don't actually understand the words. The elaborate names and spells that you get, say, in Harry Potter (the tradition of bizarre character names once seen in authors like Dickens now lives on mainly in children's books). Or in Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe Saga, where the characters not only have daft names, but spout Shakespeare and came out with gloriously incomprehensible remarks like: “It is a sign of genius to reconcile the seemingly disparate”. (I used this remark as a child on my own parents, undeterred by the fact that 1) I didn't know what it meant and 2) I couldn't pronounce “disparate”.)

Intriguingly, both Judith Kerr and Eric Thompson seem to have been reacting against rather joyless adult views about what's suitable for children. In Kerr's case this was the "long and not particularly interesting stories with a lot of complicated words 'to enrich your child's vocabulary''' that she found at the local library (Judith Kerr's Creatures p68). In Thompson's case, it was the claim children could not enjoy anything they could not understand. Their responses, though in different directions, led to stories that have been loved by adults and children alike.

As a writer, I used to love big words. Maybe this is why Sam and the Griswalds – a madcap story of the adventures of five crazy kids, aimed at 8-12s – has a similar difficulty score on the Accelerated Reader scheme to The Lord of the Rings. (Making it the perfect book for the highly literate eleven year old who still wants to read about football or kids falling in rivers.)

More recently, though, I've changed tack, and my writing style has become simpler and more straightforward. It's true I have dropped the age range, but I think it's more to do with the fact that I've become interested in the story, first and foremost, and I haven't wanted big words and funny names to get in the way. I suspect I'm part of a wider trend – I think language in children's books, especially in the Young Adult section, is generally simpler in part because so many books are now written in the first person by a child/teenage protagonist.

I've sometimes found it awkward in schools, where children are encouraged to believe Big Words Are Better. “Why do you use “said” so much?” a group of primary school pupils asked me. “We're always told to find a more interesting word instead.”

I explained my choice of "said" was not because I didn't know any alternatives. And I read them a passage from my book, substituting different words – remarked, whispered, groaned etc. It soon started to sound daft. Furthermore (I said) a lot of the times people simply are “saying” and so it's by far the most accurate word to use. In addition, if I want people to focus on what's said, rather than being reminded that they are reading a book, then “said” is the nearest thing to invisible on the page.

They got it. But their teachers looked mournful. It wasn't that they disagreed (they said) but if they taught that way their pupils wouldn't pass their tests.  The official view was that long words were good, the more fancy adjectives the better, and always find something else to use instead of that  humble “said”.

Never mind. There are fashions in everything.

Besides there really is no right or wrong on this one.  (Or is there?  Do comment.)

It just depends....

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emma's Wild Thing series for 8+ about the naughtiest little sister ever is published by Scholastic.
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.  It is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps

Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite

Writing: is it theft? by Savita Kalhan

“Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal.” T. S. Eliot



A couple of recent articles by writers have made me think about the process of writing and the question of theft in writing. I’m often asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas from?” I’m pretty sure every writer gets asked this question at some point in time.

My imagination is pretty vivid, I would usually respond. So when I hear a story, or a piece of news, or someone relates an incident that has happened to them, I store it away – to perhaps use one day. My imagination will usually do the rest, amplify it, alter it, assign it to a character, incorporate it into a story line, perhaps even make it the whole crux of a plot. As William S Burroughs said, “All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else?”

I’m not sure anyone would really call it theft or stealing – unless you ‘borrow’ whole sentences or paragraphs, and that’s a whole different blog! What makes stories relevant, individual and original is how the source of inspiration is used and manipulated by writers. If a number of writers are asked to use the same news item as the inspiration for a story, you can be assured that it will result in several very different stories. I ran a creative writing workshop last week where I gave fifteen students the same opening sentence. By the end of the session, each of the students had taken that sentence and continued it into a whole variety of stories ranging from ghost stories, adventure, romance, fantasy and science fiction. In Jean-Luc Godard’s words: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

In a recent essay describing his creative process, Ian Fleming, said that many of the scenes in his books are drawn from real incidents that he “dolled up, attached a hero, villain and heroine to, and there was the book.”

He may have over-simplified it, but perhaps not – he used to write the first draft of a story in six weeks, which is pretty astounding. Here’s a link to the rest of his essay. It’s an interesting read. http://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/literary-ian-fleming-how-to-write-a-thriller?t&s&id=03763

My writing process has come under pressure these past few months, and my motivation and staying-power is not quite what it used to be. I’ve tried working in different places and at different times, but I have felt stuck. October is the month that that will all change. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve told myself. Fleming had a tropical island hideaway where he wrote, uninterrupted, 2000 words a day. I may not be in the fortunate position to be able to fly away to Jamaica and work four solid hours a day so that at the end of just six weeks I could have a first draft of 60,000 words under my belt, but I’m damned well going to try and get the current work in progress from draft to manuscript.

And yes, my story was partly inspired by something I read in the newspaper, partly by other stories read when I was much younger, and by simply observing what modern day teenagers get up to when they’re up to no good...

 

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Falling in love...with a story - Liz Kessler

There’s something about the early stages of writing a book that is like the beginning of a relationship.

You think about it all the time, wake up excited and full of ideas about what you can do together. Everything you do relates to it and you want to talk about it all the time, but also want to keep it special and private just for you. And of course, there is the ever-present worry about whether it will all work out.

That’s where I am right now – and it’s both exhilarating and nerve-wracking. Added to this is the fact that this new book will be the sixth in a series (a new Emily Windsnap mermaid book). I guess that makes it like being at the start of a new relationship with someone you know really well.

Which has its good sides.

For a relationship, this might mean that you’re already comfortable enough to hang out in your scruffs together, or you already know how they take their coffee, you already share lots of secrets and if one of you accidentally belches after your dinner, it’s not the end of the world.

With a book, it means that I know my characters pretty well, too. I know how they talk, how they behave.  I know their little quirks. Throw them into a new situation and I have a half-decent chance of figuring out how they will each respond.

For example, let’s say a shark is following them in their boat – and the engine has just died. Emily’s mum, Mary Penelope, will freak out a bit. Her dad, Jake, will take charge and act all brave but won’t really have a clue. Mystic Millie will probably try to hypnotise the shark into submission. Shona will find it cute. Mr Beeston will almost certainly have set the whole thing up – and of course Emily will be the one to do something crazy/brave and save the day.

If we go back to the relationship analogy, the one where I’ve just got together with someone I’ve known for years, knowing how they tick would be nice. Having an idea how they'd respond in a given situation could be helpful.

The thing about writing a book, though, is that YOU are the one who has to come up with the situations. You have to think them into existence, dream them up, chip away at the block of stone to discover them inside it, or whatever. Whichever philosophy of creating plots you subscribe to, the point is the same: it’s down to you to figure it out. And it needs to be interesting, exciting, enthralling, thrilling, engaging.

Oh, and don’t forget the deadline. Which is in eight months.

So, not much pressure then.

While we’re at it, let’s add to this the fact that your story doesn’t like to feel hurried. It needs space and time. You need to carefully explore tiny sparks of ideas and see where they lead; you need to make lots of mistakes, create an atmosphere of spontaneous creativity, indulge freely in following your imagination and seeing where it leads. You need to give your story room to breathe.

It’s a pretty tricky balancing act, now I think about it. Going back to the ‘new relationship’ analogy, it feels a bit like needing to give yourself up to the freedom and openness and vulnerability that go hand in hand with falling in love – but at the same time asking for a major commitment and a certainty that it will all work out.

So, yeah. It’s complicated. And yeah, it’s hard. But – like falling in love – those early stages with your new book have a special kind of magic about them that somehow trumps the difficulties. Every tiny idea is, at this point, a possibility. Every new avenue is waiting to be explored. Your mind is filled with thoughts and plans and hopes and schemes. It’s all there to be discovered, and anything could happen. It’s a tiny spark of light in a brand new room.

Chuck in a publisher drumming their fingers and looking at their watch and a bunch of readers who already know what they want to happen next, and the spark of excitement can at times feel like a lit fuse. But I have to say, I love it. That moment before it has all really started happening. When it’s all in my hands. My characters and I coming together to start a new adventure, where anything could happen. As far as day jobs go, it’s pretty hard to beat.

And so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off out with a notebook. 

My story and I have a date.

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Abroad thoughts from home - Nicola Morgan

I'm writing this in Edinburgh on June 4th. The weather is gorgeous. The sun has been shining without pause since first thing this morning, crimson peonies are exploding into bloom, and the air around my garden office is filled with crazy blackbirdsong and the familiar smells of this part of summer - mown grass, crisp lilac, sweet hyacinth bluebells and Mexican orange blossom from the bushes outside the open office door. I'm hot, but not too hot. My skin is drinking in the sunshine and a slight burny feeling heralds a bit of a tan that I know I shouldn't welcome. I know these smells, these sounds, these feelings. I could write about them in February, because my imagination could conjure them back again. In fact, the ability to conjure them up again is pretty much the only way I can get through February.

When this post goes out, however, I will be in Kuala Lumpur, doing some talks for the Cooler Lumpur #Word festival with the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference and the British Council. I've never been to Asia, never been anywhere tropical. I cannot conjure up the sounds and smells and the feeling of humid heat because I've never experienced them.

I could try to use my imagination. I could think about Malaysian food and con myself into believing I know what it smells like in its own place - but I know I'd get it horribly wrong. I could try to recall experiences of being far too hot - Crete in a July heatwave at 40+ degrees, every day, with no air-con; Phoenix, Arizona in August, with a lot of air-con. but somehow my imagination doesn't bring it properly to me. I can't feel it. Besides, it was dry heat and KL won't be.

Or I could make it up, but that would be unsatisfying.

There are only two ways for me to know what I'm going to be feeling like as you read this. One is to be there, as I will be. And the other would be to read the words of a skilled writer conveying it.

Because that is what words and good writers can do. They can make us feel the cold and the heat and the smells, as though we were there. I have never believed that "write what you know" thing because writers have imaginations to fill the gap but there are some things I think you do need to know. I think the more we know and have experienced the more real and more natural our writing can be.

So, writing what you know may not be a good restriction but it's a valuable tool. It adds spice and flavour. And heat.

And I think that what good writers try to do when we describe something is to convey that reality and to share the heat. To make people feel and smell and taste and see.

In search of the perfect Roget's... by David Thorpe

One of my favourite writing tools is a thesaurus and this month I decided that I would buy a new one.

My last one has served me well for exactly 30 years, but sadly it predates the IT revolution and doesn't even contain the word 'byte'!

This Longman edition was, when it came out, itself a substantial revision, and was hailed in reviews for being 'feminist' because of its inclusion of more politically correct language.

In trying to select a new edition I discovered that, in my naivete, I wasn't aware of the difference between a Roget's thesaurus and a common-or-garden type. I still haven't found the ideal new edition, and wonder if anyone can recommend one. Here's what's happened so far...

Looking at reviews, I decided to buy the £30 Oxford University Press thesaurus, conscientiously avoiding buying it on Amazon for £19.40 but instead choosing to patronise my local bookshop, because I really don't want to support a company that is taking over just about everything and refusing to pay tax in this country.

I thought if it cost that much money, it must be good. Yes, I really am that naive. Touching, isn't it?

My local bookshop was very pleased, but when my book arrived, two days later, I was not. In the end, I had to take it back. Thing is, it was a conventional thesaurus, and this is when it dawned on me the difference between one of these and a Roget's.

I realised that I vastly prefer the latter, in the form of my much-loved old edition, because it is based on a system of categorising human knowledge devised by Peter Mark Roget.

Roget was an amazing man, who also invented, amongst many other things, the log-log slide rule and was co-founder of the University of London. Apparently he was also, like his contemporary Wordsworth, an aficionado of psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and used it to treat his depression.

His other self-administered treatment was making lists, and his longest list ended up as the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition (which also might qualify for one of the longest book titles ever), whose first edition was published in 1852.

A Roget's is fantastic if you don't just want a synonym for word, which is more or less what a thesaurus provides, but also to access other words that exist in a similar or related category.

For example, you might find that 'threnody' is a synonym for 'elegy' in a conventional thesaurus, but in a Roget's you'd also get lists of other kinds of literary forms.

To use a Roget's thesaurus you look up a word in the back. This gives you several possible meanings for that word, if you like, the synonyms. Alongside these are numbers, which you then look up in the main body of the book.

Here, you will find a host of words and phrases which exist in the same knowledge category, linked to other entries for related categories.

This is where the £30 Oxford edition falls flat on its expensive dust jacket. For instance, I looked up 'dress'. In that entry there were just three synonyms for dress, none of which was 'skirt'.

When I looked up 'skirt', it provided only synonyms for the verb 'to skirt', and nothing corresponding to the noun. No mention of dresses!

There were many other examples, but take my word for it, this book is not worth the substantial amount of paper it's printed on. Its only distinguishing feature is a section in the middle which provides lists of words you might want to use if you want people to think you are smart. It is a magnificent example of 'dumbing down'.

Its design makes great use of white space, whereas my Longman Roget's, although in 11 point and perfectly readable, is dense with type, to provide space for as many words as possible.

Of course, there is a thesaurus on my computer, and there is always thesaurus.com, but, like I say, these are just dictionaries of synonyms.

In effect, a Roget's is like an early version of hypertext. If Roget was around now, he would, I'm sure, be working in HTML5.

So I'm still looking for the perfect, up-to-date edition of Roget's thesaurus. There might be something wrong with me, but I do enjoy browsing through it for the hell of it, just to find trails of new words.

There are various more recent editions on the market from different publishers, but you can't tell by looking online how good they are, and I live over 100 miles from a bookshop sufficiently large to stock a variety to browse through.

Any suggestions gratefully received. Do you have a favourite edition? Or, indeed, any other favourite writing tools?

Marrying Words With Images - Lynne Garner

I've had three picture books traditionally published and with fingers crossed a new one will be published in the next year or so. With each of these projects I've never worked with the illustrator. I've had a chance to comment, highlight things that are missing or point out the odd element that doesn't correspond to my text but that's all. So when my niece asked if I could be her sounding board for her final major project (a picture book) at University I jumped at the chance.

Rather than simply illustrate a well known story my niece decided to write and illustrate her picture book. So our first step was for me to read her manuscript. I made a few suggestions for editing and tweaking. Note: never send a manuscript to a creative writing teacher if you don't want them to grab the red pen!

Her main character Tumo the baby elephant 

We then set aside an afternoon to meet up and she arrived with several large sketchbooks. She had so many ideas we knew some hard decisions had to be made, what to keep and what to 'kill.' It was decided the best course of action was to start to pick the ideas that worked and stitch these together. Basically she started with page one and worked a page at a time. 

When spreads 11 and 12 were reached that light bulb moment happened. She had come up with such a lovely image for spread 11 that it cried out to become the final spread. So with a tweak in the wording version one was complete with its new ending. Another version was also needed so the process was repeated.

Just one of my nieces quick sketches

The story is still a work in progress, so I haven't seen the completed story yet. But I know the deadline is extremely close (I know that feeling) and I'm eagerly waiting to see the end result. I have to admit I really enjoyed the experience of seeing words marry images and hope sometime I'll get the opportunity to do so again. And next time perhaps those words will be mine! 

Lynne Garner

I also blog on The Picture Book Den, Authors Electric, Fuelled By Hot Chocolate and The Hedgehog Shed

P.S. Editors: If you're looking for a new voice with some great ideas please contact me at lynne@lynnegarner.com and I'll put you in contact with my niece. It would be lovely to have another writer in the family!      

Getting it Wrong! - Ruth Symes/Megan Rix

5 Misconceptions I used to have about writers and writing:

1. I used to think all writers were rich.

Now I know that most writers barely make a living from their work - so cash-wise they're poor.

But they're also rich: Rich in having time to do the thing they love, the pleasure of knowing they're doing work that their innermost core calls them to do, flexibility of working space and flexibility of working hours.

2. I used to think a writer could write anything they wanted.

But I soon found out if you want to be published by a regular publisher you need to take into account the word count publishers are looking for (especially for younger readers) and if you want to use your writing to express your ideals and be published by a regular publisher its better to do this subtly. (Of course with e-boooks you can do what you like!)

Bella Donna's favourite meal

My first book published was very close to my heart and expressed my life view and because it got published relatively easily I thought I could do that all the time - but my manuscripts then started to turn a bit crusader-ish and got turned down. I still want to share what I believe in but I put it within a fun story. My Megan Rix books are all about how amazing I think animals are. In November I took part in the World Vegan Month and blogged for Animal Aid. I realised that my characters in the Bella Donna books (apart from the cats) only ever eat vegan or vegetarian food - and that's how I'd like to be (I count myself as a nearly vegan as I can't always manage it.)

 is Munchkin

3. I used to think once your first book was published it'd be plain sailing.

Hohoho! How wrong could I be. But not having my second or third novel manuscripts published was the best thing that could have happened because it meant I learnt to diversify and write for a range of ages and media and publishers rather than just one slot.

4. I used to think the writing life was easy.

Risotto

LOL!

5. I used to think you needed an agent.

But that isn't true. I think I'm up to my fifth agent now - one for children's books and one for adult non-fiction. I like having an agent because it lets me have more time to write and also gives me professional back-up, editorial help, sorts out my contracts and makes sure my finances are in order. But my first three books were published without having an agent so it isn't always true (and certainly not true now when you can publish yourself.)



What misconceptions did you have or maybe you went into writing with your eyes wide open - and if you did then good for you!



Ruth Symes website is Ruthsymes.com and her Bella Donna website is Belladonnaseries.com

She also writes as Megan Rix and her latest book 'The Great Escape' has been shortlisted for the East Sussex Children's Book Award.