Who Is Driving Your Story?

By Em Lynas

When I first started writing I was under the impression that the protagonist was in the driving seat and I wrote mainly from that POV. I thought that they wanted/needed something and everyone else was pretty much there to either help or get in the way. That their story was the most important story in the book.

I've learned better. After all it's the wants/needs of each of the other characters that establish the big world and small world scenarios thus creating a space for the protagonist's story.

A protagonist has nothing to fight against or engage with if the other characters don't act on their desires.

WARNING! SHAMEFUL SELF PROMOTION!

For instance, In the soon to be published (Yay!) You Can't Make Me Go To Witch School! (By me!) Daisy is destined to be a Shakespearean actress. Nothing and no one is there to stop her. She will perform her Bottom, get another part, then another part, learn her craft and eventually grab the Oscar and make a tearful speech about all the help she's had. That's the story she's in the diving seat of, and the car is a slow moving sedan going in a straight line.

Pitch that to an agent!

So, another character has to put a spanner in the works, take the wheel, and send the car down a bypass.

Introducing - Granny Wart.

She dumps Daisy at Toadspit Towers School for Witches. Putting an end to Daisy's dreams of stardom. But why would she? Granny has to have her reasons. She has to be motivated by something. Love, desire, hate, selfishness, greed, etc. She needs a backstory that impels her to leave Daisy at school and then, Ms Sage, the deputy headmistress, needs a backstory which impels her to keep Daisy at school. Which means Daisy is then impelled to fight against them both.

The motivations and desires of others pushes the protagonist into their story. 

In Harry Potter, Mr Dursley prevents Harry from receiving his Hogwarts letter. His motivation is driven by a strong dislike of magic and magical people, and a refusal to allow Harry to engage in that sort of abnormal behaviour. So when Harry meets Hagrid, he has no desire to stay with the Dursley's and enters Hogwarts.

A beautifully illustrated version from Chris Riddell

In Francis Hardinge's The Lie Tree it's Faith's father's abnormal behaviour that triggers her actions through the book. I don't want to give any spoilers but it would be a book about a boring archaeological dig if he didn't have a secret to hide, giving her a secret to uncover. I loved it.

In Hamish and the World Stoppers by Danny Wallace, illustrated by the uber-talented Jamie Littler (who just happens to be my illustrator too) something is making the world stop. If it wasn't, then Hamish's dad would not have gone missing and Hamish wouldn't have a mystery to solve. Who or what is that something and what's their motivation for doing it?

In Anne of Green Gables by L. M Montgomery Marilla and Matthew are motivated to adopt a boy who can help on the farm because of Matthew's heart problem and they end up with Anne. The complication being she's a girl not a boy and so, because she doesn't fit their original motivation, they reject her. So she has to fight to stay.

In the excellent Netflix series Anne with an E Matthew and Marilla's backstories are given room and we see why they react to Anne in the way they do. We see what they lost and how much they gain by having Anne in their lives. Personally, I think the story is deeper for that. Purists may not agree.

I've filled in lots of character creation sheets in the past but they often focus on the superficial e.g. what they look like, what they're wearing etc. Please do share if you have any links to character creation sheets based on discovering motivations and personalities.

Meanwhile I'm asking these questions about all of the characters in my books.

How did they get to be the person they are at this moment in time?

What went right/wrong for them?

What do they want in the future? For themselves, the protagonist and the other characters?

What motivates them - status, money, value, safety, learning etc

Why don't they want the protagonist to get what the protagonist wants?

Feel free to add to these questions too.

This might make an interesting starting point for future books - Don't begin with the protagonist. Begin with the world of the antagonist and secondary characters. Then drop someone else in who doesn't want what they want.

The book that immediately springs to mind here is Pollyanna by E. H. Porter

The world of grumpy people is firmly established, each with their own reason for being grumpy, and then Pollyanna is dropped into it like a pebble in a pond. She could never have spiralled down into unhappiness if the other characters' actions hadn't been motivated by severe grumpiness.

So, who is driving your story?

by Em Lynas

Currently residing on twitter as @emlynas and fb as Maureen Lynas
Published by Nosy Crow. Represented by Skylark Literary.

Maureen says, 'I'm Writing the Never Ending Story.'

When you think your story’s done. When you think you’ve ironed out all of the plot wrinkles. When you’ve upped the threat. When you’ve swept your characters towards the finale on a roller coaster of Oh no’s and Eeks! When you think you’ve searched out all of your writer’s ticks and squashed them between the pages of your book on grammar. When your writer friend has pronounced it BRILLIANT! When you think your story is FINALLY FINISHED. It’s a shock to discover ... it isn’t.

Maureen says, 'Show Not Tell.'

By Maureen Lynas

Look, I'm cross. Can't you tell?
Do I have to actually spell it out for you!
Grrrrrrrrr

I once attended an excellent weekend course run by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy. Each day was split into sessions based on plot, character, settings etc. and all was well until we reached the session on ‘Show Not Tell’ Blank looks all round. Explanations were given. Examples were given. But blank looks persisted. In the end, the tutor had to say, ‘One day you’ll all shout ‘eureka’ and the light bulb will click on.’

A Scoobie Do to Remember

Three amazing things happened to three of my lovely SCBWI friends at this year's BI SCBWI conference and I thought I would share my happiness with you.

by Maureen Lynas

SCBWI friend one is Rachel Turner

In my last post I suggested that people have a pitch ready just in case they were in the queue for the toilet and someone said the dreaded words, 'So, what are you writing?'

Well, this is what happened to Rachel, author of Dragonflu.

The Five Bricks of Story and Life

by Maureen Lynas

Eureka!

Orrible Enrietta

I'm always on the look out for patterns and structures when I'm analysing books and characters and this week was a breakthrough week for me. My last blog was on the Seven Steps of Structure and I thought the last three steps Reveal, Reflect and React needed a bit more analysis. So I got out the highlighters and put Horrid Henry (and his new friend Enrietta) back under the microscope.

Eureka! No 1

I thought I'd spotted the 3R's as a repeating pattern throughout the work, and not just after the EVENT as previously indicated.

I'll show you what I mean but I'll use Orrible Enrietta to give an example instead of Horrible Henry in case I'm sued.

Reveal

Orrible Enrietta sneaked back into the kitchen for the chocolate.

Reflect

'Chocolate is for kids. Grown ups should eat carrots and soggy cabbage. It's my human right to eat that chocolate. So I will!'

Action

Orrible Enrietta stuffed the chocolate in her mouth.

But something didn't seem quite right. Some sentences, paragraphs didn't fit the pattern – what were they doing, if they weren't revealing, reflecting, or reacting.

So I decided to check my research and went back to James Scott Bell's Revision and Self-Editing but when I looked in the book the three R's were not there! Even though that's where I was convinced I'd discovered them. What was there was –

Action Scenes – Objective, Obstacle, Outcome.
Reaction Scenes – Emotion, Analysis, Decision.

Interesting! And now I was having…

Eureka! No 2! I had discovered The 5 Bricks of The Scene.

If this is a good old secret known to many then that’s brilliant. But it’s new news to me.

The Bricks of The Scene is what story structure is built from.

Something is revealed
There is an emotional response.
There is reflection/discussion
There is a decision
There is action

For example

Reveal

Orrible Enrietta was watching Zombie's Rule, OK.

'It's your turn to wash the dishes,' said Mum.

Emote

'No! Not fair!'

Reflect/discuss

'I did it last year! Why can't we use paper plates. Why do we have to use stinky proper plates like rich people? I'm too young. I'm too clumsy!' 
That'll get her, thought Orrible Enrietta. Mum won't want her precious plates smashed.

But mum was one step ahead of her. 'Any breakages come out of your pocket money.'
Emote
Grrr.
Reflect/Discuss
I'll think of something, thought Enrietta stomping into the kitchen. What would a genius do?

Decision

Aha!  I'll wash them all right. But I won't clean them.

Reaction/action

Orrible Enrietta turned the cold water on. She rinsed the spaghetti off each plate and into the sink. Then stacked each plate on the draining board. I'll leave the tap on, she thought. It'll wash the spaghetti away. Then I won’t have to wash the sink either. I am sooooooo brilliant!

'Done Mum,' she shouted. She dashed back into the living room just as the Zombies chanted, 'Blood, blood, brains and blood. You should run, oh yes, you should.'

That seems a lot better. But I hear you cry (those of you who don’t want to follow rules or patterns)

Are there rules to break?

Yes! It doesn't have to be as prescriptive as it sounds. But rule and patterns are there for a reason, if you apply these bricks to any event, they will be there e.g. I want toast. There’s no butter. Damn it! Shall I go to the shops or have cereal? I’ll have cereal. I eat cereal. They really are the bricks of life not just story.

The reveal and emotion bricks can be alternated to escalate the emotional reaction to the reveal.

Here’s a different scenario.

Reveal

Mum interrupted Zombies Rule, OK. 'Mrs Knowitall is coming for tea,' she said.

Emote

Noooooo, thought Orrible Enrietta.

Reveal

'She's bringing Nigel Knowitall for you to play with.'

Emote

Nooooooooooooo, thought Orrible Enrietta.

Reveal

'And the baby.'

Emote

'Nooooooooooooooooooo! 

Not the BABY! Anything but the BABY!'

I hate the baby!

The emotion and reflection/discussion bricks can be alternated to escalate the panic of the situation.

Reflect/discuss

I need an incredibly clever plan that only I can think of.

Emote

Aaargh! I can't think of one!

Reflect/discuss

I'll hide. Under the bed.

Emote

Grrr. Mum always looks there first.

Refelect/discuss

'Blood, blood, brains and blood,' chanted the zombies on TV.

If only I was a zombie, thought Enrietta. No one would ever come to the house if I was a zombie.

Decision

That's it! I'll be a zombie!

Once the decision is made there can be no more reflection/discussion.

Action

'Blood, blood, brains and blood,' chanted Enrietta. She shuffled towards the door, her arms stretched out in front. 'I need flour and jam and mud.'

What can be missed out?

I'm very interested in 'the gap'. The gap we leave for the reader to fill. This is probably the basis of 'show not tell' (will think more deeply on this, that could be a giant blog post). But for now this is what I think happens. We invite the reader to infer something because we have missed something out. We give them a role to play in the story and they fill the gap with their own life experiences and knowledge. I also think this is where subjectivity comes in to play. People like books that allow them to fill the gap easily. They relate to the gap you leave.

So what can we leave out? The reveal? The emotion? The reflection/discussion? The decision? The action? Are Reveal and Reaction essential? Does leaving out emote or reflect provide the gap for the reader? Let's have a go. Let's go back to the washing up scene-

Reaction/action

I'll leave the tap on, she thought. It'll wash the spaghetti away. Then I won’t have to wash the sink either. I am sooooooo brilliant!

'Done Mum,' she shouted. She dashed back into the living room just as the Zombies chanted, 'Blood, blood, brains and blood. You should run, oh yes, you should.'

Don't Reveal

the sink has overflowed.

Emote

'Enrietta!' cried Mum, storming into the living room.

Reveal

Her slippers left soggy footprints on the floor.

Emote

'You are in soooo much trouble.'

The missing reveal from the text is implied by Mum's emotional reaction. We as adults would be able to fill the gap. But could children? Young children don't have the skill to infer so the gap may be filled by an illustration. Which is why it's essential to discuss the text and illustrations with them: to make sure they have the whole picture.

So, what's on each brick?

Reveal

In no particular order

Who’s there.

The setting.

The obstacle.

The objective.

The tone.

etc

Emote

Any!

But it should be right for your character type. Horrible Henry would be unlikely to do sadness. His main emotions are frustration and joy.

Reflect/discuss

The situation.

The emotion.

The problem.

The consequences.

etc

Decision

The protagonist must make a decision that will carry the story forward. He/she can have the decision made for them depending on the story (a bomb goes off so they must move on, the decision is out of his/her hands) but if all decisions are made for them then it isn’t really the protagonists story is it?

Action

The action should be based on the decision and should move the story along. We're not talking action as in – she waved her hand at Mum. We're talking – so I plastered my face with flour and dribbled on jam for the scars and lay in wait for the BABY.

So

The story layers seem to be

The finished structure (Hero’s Journey, Romantic Comedy etc) is created using –

The 7 steps of pacing and plotting (name, preview, contrast, EVENT, reveal, reflect, react)

Which are built with –

The 5 bricks of The Scene (Reveal, emote, reflect/discuss, decide, act)

And I’m wishing I’d called the 7 steps something else! That fits the analogy of a building. The 7 girders?

And then, I hear you cry over the internet, ‘What about the cement? What's glueing it all together?

Well, that would be the...

WORDS! 

Happy writing

Maureen 

Maureen Lynas blogs intermittently on her own blog which she creatively named - Maureen Lynas

She is the author of
The Action Words Reading Scheme
Florence and the Meanies
The Funeverse poetry site.

Seven Steps for Plotting and Pacing

by Maureen Lynas

WARNING! If you follow these steps you may never enjoy a book or film ever again. You may even experience marital and family discord. Now read on.

Candy's post on the First Page Panel in Singapore reminded of an activity I attempted (and failed) years ago. I'd just bought my very first 'how to' book - James Scott Bell's fabulous and essential Plot and Structure. The activity was:

Read four of your absolutely favourite novels and analyse them, pull them apart, because these books probably reflect the way you want to write and will give you a structure to follow.

I'm paraphrasing because I keep buying this book, lending this book and not getting this book back!

Great, fantastic advice, except – analyse them for what? For me this was a catch 22 situation. I couldn't analyse them until I understood story and I couldn't understand story until I'd analysed the books. So began a long journey to find out what makes a book tick. The other problem was – which four books? Because the books I loved to read for myself were not the books I wanted to write. I read adult books, but I wanted to write children's books, so analysing The Lord of the Rings, The Time Traveller's Wife or The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency was unlikely to help unless I was about to write about a young Orc detective called Sarumantha who can time hop. Gosh, there's an idea everywhere!

So, one thing I had to discover was – which children's books should I analyse. Which children's books did I want to read? And why? This took quite a bit of time but I eventually landed on - 

'I want to write the children's books I would have loved to read to my children (when they were children) and to the kids in my class (when I still had a class).' And 'It's my job to make kids laugh.'

Having these two statements to keep me focused was a huge help. So now I had some idea on what to analyse and once I started I couldn't stop. I became obsessed with getting to the nitty gritty of an author's skills and would jump with excitement when I'd 'cracked' another one. I would bore anyone who would listen, describing the techniques they'd used to make me laugh, cry, think, in minute detail – as if all of my friends, family and acquaintances were actually interested. Thank you for your patience! 

Eventually I had to accept that not everyone was as nuts as I was about writing and so I grabbed the chance to run the North East SCBWI in York, just so that I had the opportunity to share my obsession through chat, workshops and critiquing together. One day I found myself running a workshop on analysing Horrid Henry. I'm now sharing the notes from that workshop with you; they can be used to analyse any book or film, or used as a planning tool.

Analysing Horrid Henry

H

Henry's Here!

Identify the goal

• Henry's attempt to achieve his goal provides the major event of each book.
• The goal may be achieved during the event and the result will be positive for Henry.
• The goal may be achieved during he event but the result may be negative for Henry.

Identify Act one, two, three.

• Look for the inciting incident – the action that triggers the story. Because Horrid Henry is for young children this may be as simple as Mum saying, 'Bath-time!'
• The doorway in to act two – Henry engages with the story as a reaction to the inciting incident. In adult crime stories it can be as simple as being given a case to solve and the detective starts solving. In other stories there is more of an emotional involvement to the trigger. Do a bit of research – What is it in HH? Is it the same type of incident and doorway in each book? Is HH propelled into the story by outside forces or does he jump in?
• Look for the doorway out of act two and into act three. Does HH always solve his own problems in order to get into act three?
• Cut/mark the book into the three acts.

Now for the real fun 

The Seven Steps of Plotting

These are the seven steps to pacing and plotting that I use in my own writing because they do away with the annoying muddle in the middle. Five steps were found in an article in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing by Meg Leader and Jack Heffron (thanks Geoff) and I've broken down the last one to include some steps from Revision and Editing by James Scott Bell.

The Seven Steps are 

Name. Preview. Contrast. The Event. Reflect. Reveal. React.

It's best to analyse in the following order.

Using coloured pens, identify the following (Just put one straight line from the top to the bottom of each section)

• Highlight the main event of the book (achievement of the goal) in red.
• Highlight the contrast scene (immediately before the event) in yellow.
  • What makes a contrast scene? A contrast scene is the argument before the kiss, the campfire before the battle, the success before the failure, or the failure before the success depending on the tone and genre of the work.
• Highlight Henry's reflection (immediately after the event) in dark green.
• Highlight what has been revealed (immediately after the reflection) in mid green.
• Highlight Henry's reaction/action (immediately after the revelation) in light green.
• Now go to earlier in the story and highlight any previewing of the event in blue.
  • Is the main event (achievement of the goal) shown in another way earlier in the story? Does a similar event happen to another person earlier in the story? Does a similar event go wrong for the protagonist earlier in the story. e.g in the book about the visit to the dentist, Moody Margaret goes into the treatment room just before Henry.
• Highlight any naming that takes place before the previewing. in orange.
  • Naming is very short, e.g. 'Horrid Henry sat in the dentists waiting room' is naming this event will be about HH having a battle with the dentist.
  • Other naming – Mentioning a catapult on the mantelpiece as part of early description means that you can use the catapult later. Or, you can use opposites to name things e.g. 'This won't hurt,' is naming 'This will hurt.' Or in a romantic comedy – 'I'll never kiss him' is naming – 'I will end up kissing him.'

 Of course you will have more than one event in a longer book so the steps can be intertwined. 

You should also analyse for

Cause and effect.

• What triggers movement between the steps. How does the story move on logically.
• What is expected? What would be obvious? What actually happens?

Each scene's emotional dynamic for each character.

• Up – down (happy to sad, excited to boring)
• Down – up (confusion to clarity, failure to success)

And there you have it. For now. Have you noticed - None of the above deals with the words, the language. I'll delve deeper into Horrid Henry horrendous world in my next blog on:

• Conflict
• Tone
• Escalation
• Rhetoric
• Opinion

Back to the apology mentioned at the beginning. If you do this properly – you will irritate people. They don't seem to like it if you watch a film pointing out the seven steps. I have no idea why. After all, what's wrong with a running commentary of , 'Ayup, it's a contrast scene.', 'Nice bit of naming there.', 'Did you see that gun on the mantlepiece? You know what that means, don't you? Don't you, eh?', 'Where was the preview! I can't believe there was no preview! How rubbish is that!' or 'Yay! I know what the event's going to be!'

Good luck.

Maureen

Maureen Lynas blogs intermittently on her own blog which she creatively named - Maureen Lynas
Maureen is the author of
The Action Words Reading Scheme
Florence and the Meanies
The Funeverse poetry site.

Ready to Publish? Are you? Are you really?

 by Maureen Lynas. Illustrations by guest blogger Katherine Lynas 

Are your characters ready to be seen?

The Arvon Experience

By Maureen Lynas

It is possible that my experience of going on a Writing for Children, course at the Lumb Bank Arvon Centre, in 2010, was unusual. It is possible that I am prone to exaggeration.

It is also possible that I live a very sheltered writerly life in my loft with only my keyboard for company, and I succumbed to ‘Writer’s Euphoria’ in the presence of seventeen other children’s authors. But I don’t think so. Because I wasn’t the only author who had tears in her eyes as we said our farewells on the last morning. Some authors even threatened a ‘sit in’, but were encouraged by the lovely staff to, ‘Go home!’

So why didn’t we want to leave?

Could it have been the accommodation and setting? 

Lumb Bank is a wonderful old building perched on the side of a hill near Hebden Bridge. 

The isolation and fantastic scenery make you think you are in another world, completely cut off from your normal life.

 The room we worked, and ate in, had a huge table, big enough for eighteen to sit around comfortably and had fantastic views out over the valley. There were lots of comfy sofas in the sitting room, and the barn conversion, and we were encouraged to treat the place as our own for the week. Which we did.

The bedrooms are deliberately furnished sparsely. 

This is not the Hilton, or even a Premier Inn, in fact one student referred to her room on first viewing as ‘a pokey hole’ but had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of her‘pokey hole’ on the last morning. It can be cold up there and they recommend warm clothing – they even provide hot water bottles. But I would recommend taking your own, just in case.

All in all I would describe the centre as homely, and very relaxing. But I’m not sure that’s why we didn’t want to leave.

So maybe it was the tutors?

I don’t know if we were just lucky but our tutors were extremely supportive, non-judgemental and generous with their time. And as well as running (and participating in) the workshops they both held a one to one session with each author to discuss work we’d brought with us. They are prolific authors: Malachy Doyle writes a range of books from picture books (The Dancing Tiger, When a Zeeder met a Xyder), to teen fiction, (Georgie and Who is Jessie Flood); Julia Golding writes for older children Cat Royal, Companion Quartet, and Darcy Lock. You can see the full range at their websites, www.malachydoyle.co.uk, www.juliagolding.co.uk

Then we had the fabulous David Almond as guest speaker who oozed calmness and confidence and treated everyone as if they had already reached their goal of becoming authors of children’s fiction. I was shocked to hear it had taken him twenty years to get his first book published but reassured too - for me, it meant that I didn’t have to feel despondent for at least another ten years! He was inspirational.

But I’m not sure that was it either.

So, was it the structure of the day?

Slaving over a hot workshop from 9.30 until 12.30. Lunch, then time out to write, walk, talk, think, doze, talk, read, doze, write, talk, chill until 7pm. Sit around the huge table and eat the tasty concoction created by today’s group of volunteer chefs (more about cooking later), drink wine, then an evening activity of readings by the tutors or guest speaker. There was the possibility of a night out at the pub but we changed this to an evening of ‘Interview the Author’ that I was delighted to host. I would like to thank the tutors for their openness in answering such in depth questions as ‘Reliant Robin or Bicycle?’ and ‘What is your favourite six syllable word?’ (Thank you to Clare for those two suggestions!) Very enlightening.

Or was it the food?

The food was delicious. Help yourself to breakfast of cereal, toast, or fruit. Lunch was laid out by the staff – lots of cheeses, meats, breads, salad, etc. Plus cake. Then we had a rota for cooking the evening meal. We signed up into groups of four; each group washed up one night and cooked the next. All of the ingredients were provided, along with very clear instructions, and a member of staff was on hand to advise and rectify any disasters. Not that we had any!

So was it the workshops?

Julia and Malachy’s brief seemed to be to help us become writers in general, not just writers of children’s fiction. To help us to find our voice and to challenge us to think in different ways. 

To say I was nervous of producing work on demand would be an understatement, and to say I was alone in my stammering and heart racing would be a lie. But watching the confidence of the group growing, watching the trust developing, listening to seventeen other voices producing seventeen different responses to identical tasks was amazing. It sent out a clear message – your best writing will be written in your own voice. So let it out.

Speaking of confidence – we were told at the initial, ‘Hello, Welcome to Lumb Bank, Have a Large Piece of Cake, meeting, that on the last night we would all perform one piece of work from the week. There were big gasps of horror and much blood draining from many faces. Then, by the time Friday came, we were moaning and complaining – Only one! Are you sure? I have at least three! I was not the only one to release my inner exhibitionist, and that was before the wine!

And also speaking of confidence – people laughed at my work. Which was brilliant! As an author of funny fiction it was a relief to know that I was hitting some giggling bones. Excellent.

Maybe that was it then. Or maybe it was the students.

It started out well. Lots of smiles. Lots of, ‘Where have you come from? Really? All that way? And what about you? Really? All that way. Gosh.’ And then it just got better and better. I can honestly say I have never laughed so much in one week in my entire life. It was a girls only group, apart from Malachy, and people bonded over writing, bonded over walking, bonded over books, bonded over wine, bonded over their personal histories, their children, their goals, their future. We were so bonded there was no need for glue. And we have kept in touch through an email group and friends are meeting up all over the place, Paris, York, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Newcastle. And lots of us have become members of SCBWI and are meeting up at the Winchester Conference.

Was it worth the money?

Definitively. I would have paid again to stay another week. Arvon has just received extra funding so for the first time you can apply for a full grant and they encourage people to apply.

Would I go on another – just let me pack my bag!

So, I think it was the whole package, the whole Lumb Bank Experience that took a group of wannabe’s and sent them back out into the world with the following message -  Find out why you want to write. Find out what you want to write. Find out who you are writing for. And write!

Read more Slushpile experiences at Arvon

Candy's Arvon course with Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess

Jo's Arvon course with Celia Reese, Linda Newbery and Gillian Cross

Beware of Illustrators and Other Tips for Authors

My friend Jeremy is nine and is DEFINITELY going to be an author when he grows up ... or when he gets published, whichever comes first.

His idea of a cool website is Thesaurus.com and I managed to score some points with him by showing him how to access the thesaurus on Microsoft Word. Write Your Own Fantasy Stories (by SCBWI's own Tish Farrell) is his current bible, although he is quick to tell me that there are other genres available in the series.

He agreed to make this video with me in exchange for my revealing the ending of my unpublished adventure book Ugly City. I think I got the better half of the deal, don't you?

If you can't see the video because you're viewing this on a reader or on Facebook, go straight to YouTube

---

I was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award by Lucy Coats over at Scribble Central and by Mary Hoffman at Book Maven. For which, thank you so much!

Now I must pass on the lovely happy feelings to other blogs - I don't think I'm allowed to repeat those on Lucy and Mary's lists but no worries, there are so many great blogs out there and here are some of them!

1. The Book Thunker by 10 Year Old Boy Living in London

2. The Noisy Dog Blog by Sue Eves

3. Seven Miles of Steel Thistles by Katherine Langrish

4. Asia in the Heart by Tarie Sabido

5. Tall Tales and Short Stories by Tracy Ann Baines

6. Bewildered by Margaret Carey

7. Almost True by Keren David

8. The Bookette by Becky

9. Shoo Rayner's Blog

10. Sue Hyams' Blog

Oh! I forgot to mention I just discovered this cool blog The First Novels Club - what a great idea for a blog! I wish I got it first!

Selfridges goes for fairy tales ... with grotesque retail twists.

Daughter and I were in shopping calvary on Oxford Street when we chanced upon Selfridge's fairy tale themed window displays.

A terrifying Goldilocks with petrified bears.

And Red Riding Hood is scarier than the wolf

And what a shapely Puss in Boots

And here's Cinderella's glamorous interruptus moment

And the mice flee with a golden slipper

And Captain Hook is stuck with a display of clocks!

And Snow White is good as dead (here shown with one of the seven dwarfs portrayed by clown faced child mannequins ... shudder)

All good fun with just that touch of darkness fairy tales are known for.

Verna Wilkins and the Promise of Change in Our Own Lifetimes

BREAKING NEWS This morning Barack Obama was declared the next president of the United States and suddenly the world has changed irretrievably . Americans are celebrating, yes, but so are Africans and Indonesians - their connections to Obama may be tenuous, but in his victory, they can suddenly see possibility. And they are not the only ones. "I didn't think this would happen in my lifetime," says one pundit who was old enough to recall not being allowed to vote 40 years ago in America.

After today, In My Lifetime is possible for all our impossible dreams. Well done, America - and good luck.

So I was really really excited to blog this week because I attended the Patrick Hardy Lecture which featured one of my heroes, Verna Wilkins (pictured) of Tamarind Books. It just seemed so appropriate on the eve that some history might (might!) be made in the United States.

But unfortunately the sock monster (you know, the one who steals socks) must have escaped from the washing machine while I wasn't looking and nicked the notebook where I recorded almost every single word.

So all I have to do this without notes which doesn't do justice to this wonderful lady.

Verna says she woke up to her true calling when her then small son came home from school one day with a self portrait that he'd coloured in pink. Apparently the teacher only had pink crayons.

This reminds me of the day son number one (now 17) came back from nursery with a picture he'd drawn of our family. There was Dad, pink skin (which is almost true but sometimes he looks even milkier); there was my son, also pink (which was true at the time but no longer since he took up rugby and other outdoor bone-crushing pursuits). And then there was Mum, as in me - unmistakeable in my glasses ... but with bright blue skin.

Unlike Verna's son, my boy had solved the problem of the missing tint by grabbing the nearest other-colour.

What does it mean? We like to say that children are colour blind but they're not. Yes they are colour blind in the sense that they do not care to judge people on the basis of race like some adults do. But they are NOT colour blind in the sense that they can see!

They can see that they are a certain colour - unlike the teacher who couldn't see that her pupil was not pink-skinned. They notice that there are differences between people - like my son noticing that I was different skinned from him and his father.

And Verna's big point is that so many children in the UK - those with disability, and those with dual heritage like mine, and especially those on the more ochrey end of the colour scale - simply don't see themselves in the books they read.

It is as if they are invisible.

Verna set up Tamarind to redress the balance featuring children in many different hues, two-tone pairs of parents (like me and my husband), and wheelchairs and disability as part of the furniture. In Boots for the Bridesmaid, the brown-skinned little girl in the story has a white mum who also happens to use a wheelchair - but it's never mentioned in the text. The blurb on the cover of her catalogue is "In the Picture".

And Verna sets her rainbow kids in real kids situations.

No, not edgy stories about life on a gritty estate and racism and exclusion.

Situations that matter to REAL KIDS - like losing a tooth, birthdays, and learning to count.

Just because the images feature a range of skin tones doesn't mean they can only be read by children with permanent tans. "These books are for all children," Verna says. Its a mantra repeated over and over again in the Tamarind catalogue - "For ALL children in any environment".

Of course, 20 years on from when Verna started out, things are better. We have Malorie Blackman. And Benjamin Zephanaiah. And after years of Verna hand-selling her books from bookseller to bookseller with a bag of samples, Tamarind has become an imprint of Random House. (Verna, Malorie and Benjamin probably have a virtual monopoly of school visits during Black History Month - which in itself maybe says something about diversity in children's publishing)

After her talk, Verna took a few questions from the audience which were mainly writers, publishers and editors. One editor said, and I have to paraphrase because the sock monster took my notebook: part of the problem is that the submissions we receive do not often reflect the diversity we see in Tamarind.

Verna's response was that for there to be more submissions of this sort, more books had to be published.

As an imprint of Random House, Tamarind now has the resources to expand its rainbow:

Having established its reputation, Tamarind is ready to focus more on other cultures, including South-east Asia, and to develop more books 
for the fast-growing dual-heritage market. Read the whole Bookseller article

But in an ideal world, there would be no gap in the market; no burning need for a Tamarind Books - and no need for Black History Month.

P.S. Writers take note: Tamarind is actively looking for submissions in the area of young fiction and chapter books.