A WORD FROM THIS MONTH'S AUTHOR: Cynthia Lord

Touch Blue went through many revisions. It took me quite awhile to find the story I truly wanted to tell in this book. 

One big change the book went through was that when I first wrote Touch Blue, Tess didn't want Aaron to come.  She resented that Dad was excited a boy was coming and that her family had to change.

That might be an understandable reaction for Tess, but I kept getting feedback from my critique partners saying they felt so badly for Aaron that they didn't like Tess.  I tried giving her bigger reasons why she would feel that way, and I backed up the story so the reader got to know Tess first.  But the bottom line was that I had given Aaron a more sympathetic story, which is very hard to overcome. A reader needs to identify with the main character, more than the other characters.  

One day I asked myself, "What if Tess wanted Aaron?" It made all the difference.  

I don't save many of my drafts, but here was an earlier opening.

Touch blue and your wish will come true.

“The sea likes to keep her secrets,” Dad always says, “but every day she lets a few go.”     

At low tide, I find them. They’re never anything ordinary, like a snarl of rope, a broken lobster trap, or a long, frilly ribbon of kelp. Those things wash up in front of our house almost every day—as common as if they belonged between the huge, black-soaked rocks.

No, the sea’s true secrets are always surprises. Yesterday I found an iron teakettle, dotted with barnacles. On Wednesday I uncovered a little wooden jewelry box, empty except for two snails.

Today it’s a round bit of sea glass, just the bottom of a bottle.

"Thank you," I always say, because sometimes you don’t know for sure if something’s important or trash when it first comes.

Looking at this now, I see that it's evocative and a bit symbolic, but it doesn't show the reader what matters most or begin the plot. Here's how the book now begins:

Touch blue and your wish will come true.

“The ferry’s coming!” High on the cliffs, my five-year-old sister, Libby, jumps foot-to-foot. “Come on, Tess! Mom says we can run down to meet it!”

Across the bay the ferry looks small as a toy, leaving the mainland wharf. I’ve seen that boat heading for our island hundreds of times, but never with my heart pounding so hard.

He’s almost here!

When Rules won its Newbery Honor, I made my editor promise that she wouldn't go easier on me because of that award. As you can see from this photo of one of my revision pages, she kept that promise! 

 And I love her for it.   

StorySleuths Tip # 102: Be willing to experiment with character motivation to ensure that reader's can identify with the main character.

A WORD FROM THIS MONTH'S AUTHOR: Jennifer Holm

Dear Fellow Sleuths,


We all know that even the most accomplished authors don’t always get it right the first time. We asked Jennifer Holm if she would be willing to share with us a sample of something she revised--sort of a before and after shot from her wonderful novel Turtle in Paradise. We were expecting some random paragraph from deep within the novel, and look what we got! Jennifer shared with us an early stab at the book’s opening paragraph. How cool is that?

Ladies and gentlemen, here for your viewing pleasure, the birth of an opening paragraph!

Jennifer Holm:

So, Turtle In Paradise is a book I worked on, literally, for years. I started it back in 2005. I can’t even find some of my really early drafts because the original laptop I wrote them on was fried when my husband spilled a cup of coffee on the keyboard. (Yes, we are still married.)

I should point out that I am a somewhat strange writer in that I love revising. (Probably to a fault if you ask my editor.) And Turtle went through a lot of revisions.

This is the opening scene from an early draft I found that was written in July 2006. At the time, the working title of the book was Turtle and the Conchs.

DRAFT July 2006

I’ve got my eyes closed. I’m pretending to be asleep.

Not that it stops Uncle Lyle from talking. Smokey’s been meowing the whole time, and even she can’t get a word in edgewise.

Uncle Lyle likes to talk. And talk. And he’s got an opinion on everything. He talks about how folks in the Dust Bowl wouldn’t be having so much trouble if they’d just move near some water. He talks about how he doesn’t trust President Roosevelt to get us out of this depression and that if you give someone money for not working why would they ever bother to get a job? But mostly he talks about how he can’t wait to get to Key West so he can hurry up and get back home to New Jersey.

Looking back, the problem with this version was that it was more about Uncle Lyle than Turtle. I loved the character of Lyle (let’s just say I’ve known a few Lyle-types in my life) and he really took over the early first drafts of chapter one. This ended up being more of a hindrance because Lyle was pretty tangential to the action in the book.

Final version:

Everyone thinks children are sweet as Necco Wafers, but I’ve lived long enough to know the truth: kids are rotten. The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it.

I stare out the window as Mr. Edgit’s Ford Model A rumbles along the road, kicking up clouds of dust. It’s so hot that the backs of my legs feel like melted gum, only stickier. We’re been driving for days now; it feels like eternity.

In front of us is a rusty pickup truck with a gang of dirty-looking kids in the back sandwiched between furniture—an iron bed, a rocking chair, battered pots—all tied up with little bits of fraying rope like a spiderweb. A girl my age is holding a baby that’s got a pair of ladies’ bloomers tied on its head to keep the sun out of its eyes. The boy sitting next to her has a gap between his two front teeth. Not that this stops him from blowing spitballs at us through a straw. We’ve been stuck behind this truck for the last few miles, and our windshield is covered with wadded bits of wet newspaper.

StorySleuths Tip #96: Don’t let your main character get sidelined! And when it comes to revision, remember that it sometimes takes huge changes to get the story where it needs to go. Instead of rewriting the same paragraph over and over—try something new.


Post #6: Rooting for a Prickly Character


Posted by Allyson Valentine Schrier

Interview with Karen Cushman: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post # 7)

We StorySleuths are delighted that Karen Cushman, in addition to being a gifted and prolific writer, is an articulate speaker about her own writing process. Having heard her present at the SCBWI Western Washington SCBWI May meeting, we—along with many others—hope that at some point she will write a book about writing for children. In the meantime, we asked her to respond to some questions about writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann, and she graciously agreed.

1. In your May presentation, you described your writing process as “getting the character from here to there.” You mentioned that on occasion you go back and add action to liven the story up, and we are wondering if you can think of an example where you added action to the story of Meggy to “liven it up.”

The scene in the print shop where the fine gentleman talks to Meggy about the baron and her ballad was at first a short, straightforward give-and-take, but there was no tension or drama in it. Adding more confrontational dialogue and a few actions and gestures heightened the sense of danger and Meggy's anxiety and made the scene much more lively.

2. In the webcast about your writing that was recorded at TOPS school in Seattle in May [NOTE to StorySleuths readers—unfortunately the interview is no longer available online], you mentioned that you find the names of your characters in many sources, including your imagination. One source you mentioned is a book about a queen’s expenses and the names of the trades people recorded there. As a “Meg myself, I’m wondering if Meggy had any special connotations for you? I also wonder if her surname intentionally echoes the image of the ugly ducking who becomes a beautiful swan?

Here's the first answer I wrote to this question: "I wish had thought of the duckling to swan metaphor. I might have made more of it. But I didn't. I played around with ideas for the main characters name to see what sounded and fit her best. She was Bessie Blount at first and progressed through many alterations until I hit upon Meggy Swann. I

liked the sound of it, and Meggy was born." But then I found this comment in an interview I gave about a year ago: "She was Bessie Blunt and then Meggy Blunt and then as I wrote about her, the idea of an ugly duckling growing to be a swan led me to Swann." So there you are. You cannot trust a fiction writer. We make up stories even when we're trying to tell the truth. So which is truth and which the story? Ah, that's another question.

3. You have done a fantastic job of creating characters that are memorable and distinct. Did you have a clear picture of Meggy before you started writing, or did she evolve as the story unfolded?

Meggy definitely grew and changed as the story unfolded. Somewhere about a year into it, I titled a draft "Feisty Meggy," and it was there that I began to make her less meek and pliable and more like the Meggy we know.



And her wabbling came about because she had to have a big, serious, important reason to want to be transformed. I began to research types of disabilities. I had to know exactly what was wrong with Meggy, even though she didn't. I decided she had bilateral hip dysplasia, looked into the effects of that, and practiced walking the way she might have in order to describe it as accurately as I could.

4. What changes and revisions in the text did your editor suggest? Were there changes that your editor suggested that you both decided, after considering them, not to make in the final text?

Dinah thought there should be more focus on romantic feelings between Meggy and Roger. "After all," she said, "Juliet was only 13." Ah, said I, but Juliet is fiction. And I quoted extensively from academic sources that estimated the average age of marriage in the Elizabethan era at 26 for men and 23 for women. Men, after all, had to be able to support a wife and family. And celibacy was the only truly effective means of birth control. So Dinah, with a sigh, gave in.



But she prevailed in her suggestion that I cut some of the description. I wanted to use rollicking, roiling words to describe every house, person, business, piece of flotsam or jetsam in the crazy, chaotic city. She convinced me that enough was enough.



And see also the answer to question 7.

5. There are such rich details in Alchemy and Meggy Swann that set the character very firmly in Elizabethan London. We are curious about the kind of research you did to accomplish this. Did the story change in any way as a direct result of the research you did?

In one of the books I was reading about Elizabethan England, I found references to the vagabond laws. I did more research on them and discovered that even players might be considered vagabonds or outlaws if they did not have some noble patron. And so Grimm and Merryman's troubles were born.



And in another book I found the term "dancing house." More research. I decided to add such a place to the narrative and that led eventually to Meggy's desire to dance and, at the very end, Meggy dancing.



6. Was there is a particular element of writing craft that you struggled with, and if so, how did you overcome it?



Plot. Always plot. I read about writing graphs and narrative arcs and such tools for enlivening a plot. They never seem to fit the story I am trying to tell. I seem to wallow in character and setting and struggle with a plot, with telling versus withholding, with hero versus adversary. I don't think I ever really overcome it. I take my characters and put them into a setting, lay out the trajectory of the story, and go.

7. As writers ourselves we often find ourselves going down a path in the story only to find out that it is not a place that enriches the story as we had hoped and so we cut it. Were there any scenes you wrote that you really loved, but they just didn't fit into the story?

I cut, not without a few tears, the first two chapters, which dealt with Meggy at her village home, the ride into London with her kindly Uncle Ott, and her first impressions of the town. Like this, when they begin to cross the bridge into London: [quote]

What woke her was the stink, a sour stew of fish, sewage, horses, and sweat. Short of Hell, she wondered, what kind of place would smell like this?

Or was it the cursing coming from her uncle on the wagon seat beside her...The wheels as they turned churned the mud and cow droppings on the bridge into a great mucky sludge.

No, it was the muck that woke her, she thought. Certes it was the muck, a wad of which flew up and hit her cheek. Yes, definitely the muck. She wiped her face with her skirt and looked around at the people, animals, and wagons crowded about me. “Is this London then, Uncle?” she asked.

“Ah, no, Meggy, my heart’s love, my lily-faced poppet,” said my uncle. “’Tis but the bridge, the gateway to the wonders that are London.”

“Somewhat unwholesome wonders belike, Uncle,” she said as the turning wheels splashed more muck onto her.[end quote]

Dinah convinced me this all was backstory and the story really started with Meggy in the little house in London bemoaning her fate,

8. Could you share one Writing Tip that you learned in the process of writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann?

Bring action to description. Don't just paint a picture of a scene but put someone doing something into it. Early on, for example, I had many paragraphs describing peddlers on the crowded streets of London. It was great description but lifeless. When I lessened the number of peddlers and had them move and shout and interact with Meggy, they came to life.

Thank you, Karen. For more information about Karen and her books, visit her website.

StorySleuths Tip # 91: With thanks to Karen Cushman: “Bring action to description. Don’t just paint a picture of a scene but put someone doing something into it.”

EVERY DETAIL MATTERS: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post #4 of 6)

Dear Meg and Allyson,

How many times have you heard an editor or writing teacher say that every detail in a novel counts? That every scene, action, description, sentence, word must contribute in some way, whether advancing the plot, deepening character, or establishing setting?

I’ve attended enough SCBWI meetings and writing conferences to have absorbed this writing edict, and yet sometimes, when I hear it proclaimed, I think, “Really? Every word? Every description? What if something extraneous slips through?”

Well, I had the opportunity this last month to compare a book where every detail matters to a book where some scenes seem, well, unnecessary.

Let’s start with the latter. I won’t name names. Suffice it to say that I picked up the latest mystery novel of a well-known author who has made a career writing fiction and non-fiction all set in a particular place, which I was planning to visit on vacation.

Now, part of the pleasure of this author’s books is the vicarious thrill of reading about beautiful settings, fabulous meals, and witty conversations, but I found myself wondering the purpose some of these scenes served. Why was the author spending so much time describing the gourmet five-course meal the protagonist ate alone during a layover? Would some detail show up later in the book? Would the character return to the restaurant later? Would he discover a clue there to help solve the crime? Alas, the answer was no. The restaurant scene had no function other than showing the character indulging in a good meal. The story would have functioned just as well without it.

I compare this to our July book, Karen Cushman’s Alchemy and Meggy Swann, where every detail seems to matter. Take, for example, the ballad sellers that appear on the streets of Elizabethan London. The first one appears on page 27:

“Come and buy,” a ballad seller called, “a new ballad of Robin Hood.”

This line is embedded within a long series of paragraphs describing Meggy’s first walk in London.

A ballad seller appears again on page 44.

“Come and buy a ballad newly made,” a passing balled seller called. “Mayhap ‘The Ballad of Good Wives’ or ‘The Lover and the Bird.’”

This time, the ballad seller is more than just one of many people on the busy street. The way he carries his papers in a backpack gives Meggy an idea about how to carry her goose, Louise, while also grasping her walking sticks.

Another ballad seller appears on page 74, and at this point, I’m beginning to think, “There were a lot of ballad sellers in London!” Soon, Meggy meets a ballad printer while on an errand for her father. And then Meggy runs into yet another ballad seller while standing outside the baron’s gate on page 130.

What a pleasant surprise (and yet not wholly unexpected) to learn, then, that the solution to Meggy’s problem relates to selling ballads! The way Cushman integrates details about ballad selling and printing, as well as Meggy’s skills with singing and language, make the climax of this story satisfying. The novel feels unified, a tightly woven tapestry where every strand counts.

Let me just conclude by saying that the ballad seller is not the only seemingly small detail that grows in importance in Alchemy and Meggy Swann. Look back at the book to references to the heads on the Tower Bridge and the issue about players needing noble patronage.

StorySleuths Tip #88: Make sure every detail matters. Look for ways to introduce important details early in the story and then re-introduce them throughout the book to create a unified effect.

INTERVIEW WITH PETER BROWN: The Curious Garden - Second Post

Peter Brown's inspiring keynote at the Western Washington SCBWI Regional Conference last weekend was titled "Questions (Not Answers)." The questions he focused on were:

1. What am I good at?
2. What are my goals?
3. How can I do my best work? and
4. What's my strategy?

By sharing his answers to these questions, he modeled for the 350 authors and illustrators who attended some of the ways he focuses on, and reaches, his goals.

So we StorySleuths decided to ask him our own questions, focused on the craft of writing, which he graciously answered. His responses are below.

StorySleuths: On your website, you posted an intriguing page of starts, all but one crossed out, for Flight of the Dodo. We're wondering if those are from real first drafts, or if they are created to make your point that picture books are tough to write (we're not expecting you to reveal any trade secrets!). We're wondering if you have a similar set of openings for The Curious Garden, and if so, what they were. How did you develop that important opening paragraph?

PB: The page of starts on my website was created specifically to illustrate my point that from many bad ideas came one good idea for the opening of Flight of the Dodo. The Curious Garden took such a long time to develop that there was never a page of starts. Mostly I tinkered with big story concepts in my workbook, and typing on my computer, until I had the major story arc resolved. Then I went back-and-forth between writing and sketching and gradually shaped the wording for each page.

StorySleuths: You say, "I usually do a lot of bad writing before I figure out how best to tell my story." Do you have previous drafts of The Curious Garden? We'd be interested in what changes you made as you revised the text.

PB: I'd rather not reveal the early drafts of TCG simply because the process took so long, and the story evolved so much over time, that the early drafts feel more like a different story entirely...a story I may end up developing into a new book some day.

StorySleuths: We've heard Maurice Sendak say that he completes the text for his picture books before starting the illustrations. Do you work this way too, or do you work on text and illustrations together?

PB: I work on the text and illustrations simultaneously. I usually begin by working through the text, and make notes for how I envision the illustrations that might accompany the words of each page. But eventually I hit a wall in that writing process and need to work through some of the sketches before deciding how to proceed with the writing.

StorySleuths: The Curious Garden is a very visual concept. Your Author's Note indicates that you were inspired to write the story by the lush garden that has developed on the abandoned elevated railway on the west side of Manhattan. Did the idea for the story emerge more from images you wanted to paint, or from a story you wanted to tell?

PB: It started visually, with me imagining beautiful, whimsical scenes of a boy in his own private city wilderness. But eventually I realized that I hadn't created much of a conflict, and so I began to figure out what was at the heart of the story I was trying to tell. After I worked out the big story arc I got into my usual pattern of back-and-forth between writing and sketching.

StorySleuths: What changes and revisions in the text did your editor suggest? Were there changes that your editor suggested that you both decided, after considering them, not to make in the final text?

PB: I worked on this book for about 3 years before signing it up with Little, Brown and Co., and then spent over a year working on it with my editor, Alvina Ling. It was such a long, strange process, that I can't quite remember all the changes that the story went through. But at one point, the book wasn't focused as much on the community theme, and in the pages where the garden was transforming the city we didn't really see many other people. The effect was that it looked like the plants were INVADING the city, which obviously wasn't the story I wanted to tell. So I decided that instead of just having Liam be the lone gardener, it would be much more powerful if he created a gardening movement, which in turn would better explain how the city could go through such dramatic changes.

StorySleuths: You can see from our post PASSAGE OF TIME: The Curious Garden that we were fascinated by the way you handled the passage of time in the story. At what point in writing the story did you decide to move the story so far back in the past and so far forward into the future (from the predominant action in the story)?

PB: I wanted to make this story seem as believable as possible. Nobody would believe that a city could go through such a dramatic transformation in a short period of time, so I really had no choice but to draw the story out over a couple of decades. But that passage of time also worked to show that Liam stuck with his gardening for the long term, which reinforced some of the other themes in the book.

StorySleuths: Could you share one Writing Tip that you learned in the process of writing The Curious Garden?

PB: I learned the power of wordless pages. TCG has four of them, and I think they were very effective in creating a peaceful, quiet, dreamlike setting. Wordless pages might not work for every story, but authors should remember that it is possible for them to write a wordless picture book (that could be illustrated by someone else). I think the exercise of writing a WORDLESS picture book could do wonders to improve an author's understanding of the medium.

Thank you, Peter Brown. Thank you for your memorable website, your stunning books (note StorySleuths readers: click on the sheep to hear them baaaaa), and especially for sharing your wisdom, experience, and insightful writing tip with us.

StorySleuths' Tip #63: Peter Brown says, "Remember that it is possible to write a wordless picture book (that could be illustrated by someone else). The exercise of writing a WORDLESS picture book could do wonders to improve an author's understanding of the medium."