Guest Article: Begin With a Bang! by Robyn Opie
Begin with a Bang!
by Robyn Opie
It is a fact of life that publishers will only read one or two pages of your manuscript. They receive far too many submissions to give each one their undivided attention from beginning to end. And, sadly, some of these submissions don’t deserve more than a minute or two of an editor’s time.
As a reader, I have given up on books that haven’t grabbed me in the first chapter. Children, I’m sure, are less patient than I am.
Therefore it is vital for a writer to grab the reader in the first page or two, especially when writing for children. We can even narrow this done to the first sentence or paragraph. Your beginning should intrigue the reader and inspire him/her to read further.
Dialogue and action are a great way to start a novel. Imagine the beginning of your children’s book as dropping your readers into the middle of things, when everything is starting to change or get interesting. Using dialogue or action to plant questions in your readers’ minds will hopefully make them want to read on.
Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to set the scene. Background information about the character, their family, home, friends etc – that is essential to the plot – should be interspersed in such a way that it never slows the story down. Certainly it should never fill the first few pages of your manuscript at the expense of the story.
Let’s look at some examples from my own children’s books:
Beginning with dialogue –
(From my easy reader Chick Catches Dinner)
“I can’t sleep,” said the chick. “I’m not tired.”
In the above example, I’ve introduced the main character and her problem.
A few lines later:
“I wonder if anyone else is awake,” said the chick. She went for a walk.
Thus begins chick’s night-time adventure.
Beginning with action –
(From my junior novel The Mad Mower)
Tony felt nervous, as though his stomach was a food processor mixing a chocolate cake.
In the above example, I want the reader to wonder why Tony is feeling nervous. What is so important to him? And who is Tony anyway?
A few lines later:
Now he was ready to test his computer programme. If it worked it would be unbelievable. It would change his life forever.
The above paragraph is meant to keep the reader turning the pages. What computer programme? Why would it be unbelievable and change his life forever?
Beginning with action and dialogue –
(From my easy reader Down the Well)
The hen heard a splash in the well, so she went to have a look.
“Hello,” yelled the hen.
“Hello,” yelled a voice.
Again, in the above example, I want the reader to keep turning those pages to find out the answers to a few questions. Has someone fallen down the well? Is the voice simply the hen’s echo?
Beginning with setting –
(From my junior novel Martian Milk)
The carpark at Shopper’s Dream was busy. It was Thursday, the day when shoppers from Planet Nub and Planet Teg came to visit, looking for bargains. Paul’s mother, Mrs Taylor, flew the space-car around and around, looking for a place to park.
In the above example, I’m setting the scene of a futuristic Earth. The idea is still to keep the reader turning those pages.
By now, you should be seeing a pattern with beginnings. They are all about hooking the reader and making them want to read more until they have all the answers.
The conflict should be evident as soon as possible, preferably within the first few paragraphs of your children’s book. Your reader needs to know who the story is about (main character) and why there is a story (the main character’s problem/conflict) as early in the novel as possible. You want your readers identifying with the character and their problem before they have a chance to lose interest. This is even more important when writing for children. Children have shorter attention spans and a lot of distractions around them, such as TV, computer games and sport.
Writers often start their story at a point then later, in the rewriting/ editing process, change the beginning. It can take numerous attempts to get the beginning right. Whole opening chapters can sometimes be discarded to improve a story. I’ve done this myself.
It isn’t enough to captivate the publisher or reader with a brilliant beginning. You need to keep the standard. The middle and ending of your children’s book should be equally as satisfying. However, it is the beginning of your novel that will keep the publisher reading or make them move onto the next submission.
© Copyright Robyn Opie. All Rights Reserved.
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Guest Article: Plotting and Developing a Story – by Robyn Opie
Plotting and Developing a Story: Cyclone Santa
By Robyn Opie
In 2001, my then publisher, Barrie Publishing, produced an Australian fiction series. They were looking for stories with an Australian historical background for a second series. It was at this time I wrote Caught in a Cyclone, set at Christmas 1974 during Cyclone Tracy.
Before I could submit my manuscript, Barrie Publishing decided not to pursue a second series.
Years later, I submitted Caught in a Cyclone to Era Publications. The editors’ reactions surprised me. I thought it was a good story but I wasn’t expecting seasoned editors to become so enthusiastic and emotional over it. Caught in a Cyclone was accepted and published in 2007.
My partner, Rob, and I live in a residential three bedroom home with a large games room out the back. In the games room are a pool table and dart board. We like to play pool every night to relax but also to discuss writing and our various projects. We often use this recreational time to brainstorm, plot and plan. And that’s how my book Caught in a Cyclone became the basis of a feature film, now titled Cyclone Santa.
We knew that the book had to be developed and expanded to become a feature film of approximately 120 minutes. We’d already spoken to Bernadette O’Mahony from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and she’d given us some valuable advice and ideas. We’d met with a local producer and script editor, who had also given us a couple of suggestions.
Advice, suggestions and ideas were helpful. But we still needed a plot or plots for our screen story. We were rather daunted and overwhelmed with the prospect of coming up with the entire contents of a movie. Where, oh, where to start?
Our location was obvious. We headed straight to our sanctuary – the games room. While we played pool, we discussed what we had. My book. That was it. So we had no choice but to start from there.
After speaking to Bernadette, we’d decided to increase the size of the family that, in the book, is at the centre of the drama. We added a young son, Mikey. Our family now consisted of two parents, a daughter and a son.
In the book, the family are home together when they get caught in Cyclone Tracy and experience the worst night of their lives. We decided that the best way to add drama and expand the story was to separate the family – the adults. The obvious choice was to put the father at work and keep the mother at home with the children. So we did the opposite.
Next, we had to think of reasons why the parents would be separated by distance at the time of a cyclone. It seemed unlikely, unless one of them was forced to work. Therefore the mother was at work and the father was at home. We loved the idea of going against the stereotype of the father being at work and the mother at home. But why would a mother be forced to work on Christmas Eve?
There seemed one obvious answer and that answer suited the drama of a cyclone perfectly. We decided that the mother would be a nurse at the Darwin hospital. For fun, we made the father an electrician who wasn’t able to find work due to the holidays, though the family needed his income. Clearly, work would not be an issue after the cyclone.
Once we’d placed the mother, Toni, at the hospital as a nurse, we were able to develop a second story line. We knew now how the two storylines would meet at the end of the screenplay. Again, it seemed an obvious choice – the Darwin hospital.
Enter Ben, Jam and Violet.
Ben is a contractor for Australian Royal Mail, who flies a tiger moth to outback communities to deliver the post. He is based on a real person.
In Outback Australia, Ben is approached by Jam, an Aboriginal boy in need of help. His grandmother, Violet, is seriously ill and needs urgent medical assistance. The point of this second story line was to force Ben to fly his tiger moth into Darwin during Cyclone Tracy.
During my research on Cyclone Tracy, I read a story about a man who flew a light aircraft into Darwin airport before it was closed as a result of the cyclone. We were amazed that someone could fly through a cyclone and imagined the drama of doing so. We had to include this element in our story.
Jam has a special place in our hearts and minds, mainly because he will always remind us of playing pool together. When one of us hits a lucky shot and the ball, no skill involved, ends up in the pocket, Rob sings out, ‘Jam’. We were discussing possible names for our character. After Rob made a fluky shot, I looked at him and said, ‘What about Jam?’
We have a friend who works in Aboriginal Communities. Every time we saw him, he told us stories about Indigenous people and their beliefs. We were able to draw on some of this information as we plotted Cyclone Santa.
The first thing we did, after brainstorming the two stories, was write a treatment – a 20 page synopsis or outline of the film. Our evening in the games room had given us enough information to complete the treatment.
Initially, we were overwhelmed at how to expand my book Caught in a Cyclone into a 120 minute feature film. But we knew that we had to try. So we just did it.
We started with the characters and the event Cyclone Tracy. Developing the characters helped us come up with two intertwining plots. Once we knew more about them, we knew how our stories were going to unfold. After all, the story is about the characters – it’s their journeys, their stories. In a way, we let the characters define their destinies, with a little help from us.
© Copyright Robyn Opie. All Rights Reserved.
Guest Article: MAKING EDITORS HAPPY, by Dianne Bates
© Dianne Bates
dibates@enterprisingwords.com
Since mid-June 2006, I have compiled and edited a fortnightly online magazine, Buzz Words (The Latest Buzz on Children’s Books), www.buzzwordsmagazine.com. Its target readership is people in the Australian children’s book industry. The magazine’s contents include markets, competitions, opportunities, articles, interviews and book reviews. Some material is commissioned, and freelance writers are welcome to suggest articles or interviews they would like to cover. Payment is made on acceptance. Book reviewers are not paid, but get to keep the books they review.
As a children’s author, the best advice I ever received was ‘always do whatever you can to make an editor’s life easy.’ Knowing that editors are very busy and have many calls on their time from numerous writers and others, I have always tried to adhere to this advice. Since working on Buzz Words, I have observed a number of ways in which contributors can unwittingly create problems for editors. At times these might seem like small and inconsequential matters to a writer. That might be so on an individual basis, but often the editor has to deal with the same problems every day, from several people. The cumulative effect can be most taxing. Because of this I thought it would be a constructive and informative exercise to examine some of problem areas.
To begin, Buzz Words’ interviews all have the same format – a heading in bold caps, an introduction in italics, then questions in italics and in blue font, and answers in black, plain font. This sounds easy, but in seven out of ten cases, the contributor does not comply with house style. Invariably this involves me in time-consuming work. The typical length of interviews is 1,000 to 1,200 words, but more often than not interviews far exceed this length. Freelancers, sending me interviews as long as 4,000 words, have invited me to ‘cut to the required length’. Sorry guys. Editors just don’t have the time for that.
Then there is the contributor who sends in an interview, article or book review which I subsequently format and/or edit and place into the relevant issue. However, within a day – sometimes even half an hour later – the contributor gets back to me with a different version.
Probably all writers are guilty of this at times, when they’re new and don’t know any better. Editors hate it. Please, don’t submit a manuscript to any publisher until you are sure it is 100% ready. Get it right the first time.
On numerous occasions I have placed notices in Buzz Words offering paid writing assignments. The freelancer who responds first is the hungriest. I have far more inclination to hire that person than the writer who gets around to responding to me a fortnight later. I am also more inclined to take on the applicant whose email shows they know how to punctuate, spell, write clearly and have their contact details in the body of their email. It is so easy to create a signature on an email that includes postal and email address, phone number and website. To me, it is a sign of professionalism. However, the majority of writers do not do this.
I have found that often freelancers who are given a commission then send me a list of interview questions asking me to vet them. That is not the way it is done. If a freelancer and editor agree on a personality to profile in an interview, then it is the freelancer, not the editor, whose job it is to create the questions.
It shouldn’t have to be stated that freelancers need to conduct research about the guest to be profiled. They also need to consider the Buzz Words readership (mostly new children’s writers, authors, editors and librarians). Unfortunately, I find that occasionally freelancers don’t display a lot of determination when trying to locate their subject. As any journalist will tell you, you don’t give up easily; you need to persevere. If you don’t get a reply to an email or phone call, don’t throw in the towel. Maybe the hard-to-find subject has a publicist, or a friend whom you can contact. Try again.
Part of being professional as a writer is to be persistent. It is also about delivering, with as little fuss as possible, material that is the right length, sticks to the topic and is written clearly and precisely, and is presented in the right format. Finally, and most importantly, all copy should be scrupulously edited or proof-read.
Dianne (Di) Bates is an author with a background in regional newspaper and children’s and adult magazine editing. Her latest book, her 100th title, is a YA novel, Crossing the Line (Ford Street). Her website address is www.enterprisingwords.com
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