Kitty Black has a background in psychology and teaching and believes stories are at the heart of who we are. Kitty is the author of many picture books, two of which have been translated into German and Turkish! Today we’re chatting to Kitty about her latest picture book: The Starting School List, illustrated by Cate James.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of The Starting School List.
It’s Little Brother’s first day at school tomorrow. Luckily, Big Brother knows what that feels like. And what’s more, he has a list of what to expect …
You’ll learn where the loos are, and all about bugs. You’ll learn a sad friend could do with a hug. You’ll learn the best spot for sand that is slushy. You’ll learn that tomato makes sandwiches mushy.
How did you come to write about startingschool?
I was actually asked if I wanted to write a picture book about starting school by my publisher, I’d never thought about it before, but I instantly loved the idea. We knew that we wanted the book to be full of good advice, and who’s better at telling younger kids what to do than their older siblings. In a loving, helpful way of course!
What’s your favourite memory about starting school?
I wouldn’t call this my favourite memory, but it’s definitely the strongest memory I have of starting school, I got left behind on my first day. My older siblings told me to wait outside my classroom and they’d come get me on the way to the bus stop, but they forgot! A teacher drove me home, and just as we were pulling into the driveway my Mum was marching out of the house, car keys in hand, shouting at my siblings about how could they forget their little sister. They never forgot me again!
You’re the author of many picture books … and this one is written in rhyme. When you get an ideafor a picture book, how do you know whether a story should be told with or without rhyme?
This is my first rhyming book, and I was honestly surprised that I wrote it in rhyme. I tried writing the book without rhyme over and over again, but it just didn’t feel right. There was something about the first words in the book ‘Hey little brother, are you asleep?’ that just WANTED to rhyme. So, I guess I don’t know when a story should rhyme or not, but the story knows.
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to try writing their own picture books?
Go for it! Writing should be fun, so if an idea makes you giggle, make it into a book!
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I am working on ANOTHER rhyming picture book, which was inspired by my cheeky dog.
The Starting School Listisout now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Kristy Nita Brown is a Western Australian author, writing junior fiction books and delivering creative writing, independent publishing and film making workshops at libraries and schools. Today we’re pleased to be chatting to Kristy about the first book in her Mavey and Beth’s Double Act series: Where’s My Whistle?, illustrated by Alison Mutton.
The author provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Where’s My Whistle?
About the book:
The Year Two song has whistling in it, and Mavey can’t whistle. To make matters worse, Mavey’s twin sister Beth has a mighty whistle. Terrified her classmates will laugh at her, Mavey and her family devise a plan to get Mavey whistling. Will Mavey learn how to whistle in time for the big concert? Or will Mavey’s toot stay mute?
First things first: can you whistle?
I can whistle. I remember my dad showing me how to whistle. We lived in the bush, so I had plenty of long car rides to practise. But Mavey and Beth’s Double Act: Where’s My Whistle? isn’t about me. It’s based on my eight-year-old daughter who can’t whistle. When she found out she was the only kid in her class that couldn’t do it, she was very upset. Together we searched the Internet for different ways to whistle. Do you know some adults can’t whistle too?
The book includes some interesting facts about whistling – did you write the storyline first or did all those whistling facts give you the idea for the story?
At the back of the book I included facts about whistling, a pan flute activity and the Skipping Song to play on the recorder. These came last. The story came first, from watching my daughter struggle with the feelings that come along with being unable to do something your friends can.
We learn that Mavey’s favourite subject at school is Music. What was your favourite subject when you were at school?
Music was one of my favourite subjects growing up because I played the flute. Every Saturday, I went to flute lessons at the Fremantle Music School. Then, on some Sundays, I performed with other kids in a small ensemble. My best friend at primary school also played the piano. We both loved music together. In high school, my favourite subject was small business. Because I sold lollies and washed the teacher’s cars, and made lots of money!
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to try writing their own chapter book?
My tip for young writers is to read as many books as you can that are similar to what you want to write. Then pick your favourite and follow the structure as you write your own story. Most chapter books have a similar number of chapters and word count. Usually, something happens in each chapter to move the story forward. At the end, the story is resolved in a way that the person reading it learns something, or feels good. Hopefully, following this structure will help a young writer get to the end, because I think finishing the story is the hardest part.
What’s next for Mavey & Beth?
I’m toying with a couple of ideas for the next Mavey and Beth book. I know the cover will be green and blue. I can picture the twins on the cover. But I’m not sure if the story will be about Mavey getting her ears pierced, a birthday party mishap, or a swimming lesson disaster. What do you think?
Allison Rushby made a wish when she was six years old. She wished to be a ballerina with pierced ears. Not long after this, she wrote her very first book (not about a ballerina) and decided to be an author with pierced ears instead. She went on to write many more books, for both adults and children, though none of them were sticky-taped together like that first one. She lives in Brisbane with her family and her two not very useful assistants, Harry the Bordoodle and Titus the Sphynx. If you’ve ever dreamed of your wishes coming true, you’ll love Allison’s new series! Today we’re chatting to her about Book 5 in The Wish Sisters series, The Christmas Wish, illustrated by Karen Blair.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of The Christmas Wish.
A delightful, festive story in this funny, illustrated Australian series for newly independent readers: It’s Christmastime, but Flick and Birdie are missing their Granny Aggie. To cheer them up, Mum and Dad invite the neighbours over to decorate gingerbread houses. All is going well until Mrs Mortlake brings up Christmas wishes, giving baby Birdie all the wrong ideas. How can Flick spread the joy of Christmas when a gingerbread person is biting the guests?
Did you grow up with a little sister?
I didn’t! I’m a big sister. Though I always think it feels a bit strange to say that because my ‘little’ brother is very tall and I am not very tall at all! So my little brother is my big brother, really!
Do you have any Christmas traditions in your own household that you like to revisit every year?
When I was a child, our family always had a real Christmas tree, which is something people don’t seem to have much anymore. I remember it smelled absolutely delicious – lovely and pine-y and fresh. Whenever I walk past the pine trees at my local park I take a big sniff of that sharp smell and always think about our family Christmas tree! Sadly, I have a very naughty Sphynx cat (one of the cats with no hair), so my Christmas tree for the past few years has been very dull – it’s made of wood and fits together a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. I can’t even have any decorations as he’s that naughty! I tried to have some twinkly lights this year, but he chewed through the wires!
The baby sister gets to do the all wishing in this series. What would you wish for if you had an imp who could grant your wish right this second?
This might sound like something very boring and adult to wish for, but I would wish for my oven to be fixed. It broke yesterday and I’m a bit worried it won’t be fixed for Christmas. A lot of baking needs to be done at Christmas! But I’d also be a bit wary of doing any wishing, because the imp is just as naughty as my cat. The imp manages to twist every wish in unexpected ways. I can’t even imagine what the imp would do to my oven!
Do you have a writing tip for young writers who might like to try writing a series?
I always tell young writers the most important thing they can do is read. Read, read, read and then read some more! But while you are reading, also take note of the stories you enjoy the most. Are there books you’ve read more than once? What was it about them that you loved? Was it the setting? The characters? Try to work out what you’re drawn to as a reader, because this is usually a good indication of what you will enjoy writing the most.
What are you working on next?
I’m currently writing a book about a mythical creature that’s set in the late 1600s in London. I’m having to do a lot of research, but it’s so much fun to lose myself in a whole other world each day.
The Wish Sisters is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Ashleigh Barton lives in Sydney, Australia. As well as writing the Solomon Macaroni novels, Ashleigh is the author of several picture books. Today we’re pleased to have Ashleigh visiting Alphabet Soup to talk about the second book in the Solomon Macaroni series: Solomon Macaroni and the Vampire Vacation, illustrated by Sarah Davis.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of this book.
The world’s friendliest vegetarian vampire and his six mischievous cousins are going to Paris with Uncle Dracula. They can’t wait for the fine food, fabulous fashion and fang-dangled art. But Uncle Dracula is not himself. When the kids see the Mona Lisa, they get an idea to cheer him up … and it’s their naughtiest one yet.
Uncle Dracula takes Solomon and all the cousins on a holiday to Paris. If you were heading off to Paris yourself, what would you be most looking forward to?
I’m like Elvis – I would definitely be most looking forward to the food! The other thing I’d most be looking forward to is seeing the Bouquinistes of Paris (the booksellers of Paris), which are green wooden boxes along the Seine that hold hundreds of thousands of books, including second-hand and antique books. These open-air bookstores have been there for more than 500 years. I’d originally included a scene revolving around the Bouquinistes in Solomon Macaroni and the Vampire Vacation but it got edited out for pacing reasons. If I ever go to Paris again, I can’t wait to see these – I bet there would be so many amazing treasures to discover.
The Catacombs played a big part in this story and I haven’t seen them in person either, so I’d have to add that to my list too, along with a lot of other things I discovered in my research.
Have you seen the Mona Lisa at the Louvre?
I have seen the Mona Lisa at the Louvre but it was a very long time ago! I was lucky enough to go to the Louvre when I was nine years old. It was quite incredible knowing how long ago the painting was made and how revered it is. When I was researching for the book, I watched a lot of videos and read a lot of accounts to see how other people felt when seeing the Mona Lisa in person and one thing I read a lot was how surprised people were by the size. It’s actually fairly small (which made it much easier for our characters to steal!).
Unfortunately I didn’t make it back inside the Louvre when I visited Paris again many years later, but I will have to add it to my wish list above!
The cousins are big fans of ice-cream … which ice-cream flavours would be in your own multi-flavoured ice-cream tower?
If someone gave me a multi-flavoured ice cream tower I would have to try one of everything. When else would you get the chance to try every flavour in the shop and have no regrets about choosing the wrong one?
This book involves a careful plan being carried out with precise timing. Are you a plotter or a pantser when it comes to writing about planning a heist?
I think I’m a mix of both! I’m pretty terrible at admin generally and for me plotting feels a lot like admin. I also find that one idea leads to another, so things take unexpected turns for me along the way when I’m writing. But I do try to have some kind of plan in place, whether that’s a point A and point B with nothing planned to get from one to the other, or something more detailed. When I plotted this particular heist, I knew exactly what was going to happen once they pulled it off but I didn’t plan every step or the things that went wrong along the way until well into writing it.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I’m not sure what will be happening next with Solomon, but in the meantime, I have two picture books and a brand-new series coming out next year. I’m not sure I can say too much about this new series yet, but it’s completely different to Solomon Macaroni and for a slightly younger audience. It is contemporary fiction with a bit of a non-fiction twist and another amazing illustrator on board!
Solomon Macaroni and the Vampire Vacation is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Chenée Marrapodi is an author and journalist who has danced ballet and jazz her whole life, loving the stories that can be created through movement. Today we’re pleased to be talking to Chenée about her debut novel One Wrong Turn.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a review copy of One Wrong Turn.
From the publisher:
Amelia is a ballerina on the rise — she’s talented, dedicated and set to star in the lead role of the annual production. But when Valentina arrives from Italy and joins the ballet academy, the competition gets fierce. Can Amelia outshine Valentina and keep her place in the spotlight?
At your book launch, you mentioned going to ballet classes in Australia and in Italy. Do you have a memorable ballet performance you were in when you were young?
My first ballet performance was definitely a standout. I was a sheep and two farmers had to shear our wool on stage!
It’s funny to look back at now, but at the time I was so disappointed because in the previous year’s concert the girls got to be fairies.
What is your all-time favourite ballet production? ( … Would it be Cinderella?)
Cinderella is definitely one of my favourite ballet productions, which is one of the reasons it features in One Wrong Turn. There’s something special about seeing a familiar story brought to life on stage. I find it easier to get lost in the beauty of the dance because I already know the narrative so well.
I particularly love WA Ballet’s production of Cinderella, which is described by Amelia in my novel. Amelia talks about getting to ride on Cinderella’s coach as a young child, which is something that kids actually get to do in WA Ballet’s performance. It’s really special to watch!
In particular, I love watching the Step Sisters. They are hilarious and always steal the show. I once saw one of the sisters do tap dancing on her toes in pointe shoes. I still don’t know how she managed to do it!
Did you need to do any research while you were writing One Wrong Turn? Or did your experiences growing up cover everything you needed to get your story down?
Most of the story was inspired by my own experiences in dance classes. Some of Miss Lily’s funny corrections were things I’d heard my own teachers say over the years. Given I was never training for a career in ballet, I did chat to a couple of professional dancers to make sure the amount of training my characters were doing was realistic.
Valentina’s Italian family and traditions were also inspired by my own experiences. I’m Italo-Australian and grew up with big family meals and traditions like sauce and sausage making days. Valentina’s house is actually based on my Nonna’s and features some of the quirky pictures that used to hang on her walls.
I also lived in Italy for a while and danced at a small school while I was over there. Like Valentina, I couldn’t translate my teacher’s corrections while I was dancing. I found it too hard to remember choreography, listen to music and translate corrections in a foreign language at the same time. It took my teacher a whole year to figure out my secret!
Despite being fluent in Italian, I got one of my good friends in Italy to double check the Italian phrases in the novel. I don’t speak the language as much as I used to and I’m a little bit rusty. The last thing I wanted was an error forever printed in my book!
What’s the worst writing tip you’ve ever been given?
“Edit the story as you go.”
It might work for some people, but it doesn’t work for me. If I edit as I go, I get too fixated on trying to make every sentence perfect. It makes the whole task feel too overwhelming and I never make it to the end. Instead, I find it better to write a messy and fast first draft. I don’t reread my work until I make it all the way to the end of the story. It’s much easier to edit a messy page than a blank one.
Can you tell us a little about what you’re working on next?
I’m really excited to be working on a sequel to One Wrong Turn. It’s great fun being back at the ballet academy. You can expect the same characters, with a couple of new additions. There’ll also be lots of dancing (including a different style), fun, friendship, a tiny bit of romance and some very big challenges for everyone to overcome.
One Wrong Turn is out now! Ask for it at your favourite local bookshop or local library.
Dianne Wolfer lives on the south coast of Western Australia, but she grew up in Melbourne, Bangkok and Albury. Dianne writes picture books, novels for children and teenagers, and nonfiction for all ages. Today we’re chatting to Dianne about her latest novel Scout and the Rescue Dogs, illustrated by Tony Flowers.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Scout and the Rescue Dogs.
The summer holidays have finally arrived and Scout can’t wait for her adventure in the big rig with Dad. They’re on a mission to deliver donations of dog food to animal rescue shelters right across the state. But Scout and her dad get more than they’ve bargained for. It’s bushfire season – and it’s not just the dogs who need rescuing …
You have a rescue dog yourself, can you tell us a bit about Harry?
I’m always happy to talk about our beautiful rescue boy. His personality inspired aspects of a previous book, The Dog with Seven Names, and now he has inspired another!
We saw Harry on the SAFE rescue site ten years ago. He was huddled in a corner with a plastic cone around his head looking very sad and lonely. Harry was found running in the street. He’d been badly treated and was a terrified, little fellow. He had many fear triggers. When we were driving to collect him, another dog attacked Harry, so when we first met him, he had a nasty gash across his neck. We brought him home and truckloads of love soon helped him settle and trust people again. He’s had a good life since then, being walked, and spoilt. This past winter he enjoyed a road trip to Broome where he swam at the beach every day. Our grown-up kids reckon Harry is the favourite child.
Is the character Scout based on anyone you know?
No, however aspects of myself, my friends and family have found their way into the story. Like Scout, I love dogs and animals and was distressed by the impacts of the 2019/2020 bushfires on wildlife and our forests.
I’d completed a read-through draft of the story when terrible fires broke out in many of the towns Scout visits. It happened around Christmas, the same time as my novel. I had to decide whether to change my settings or include the fires. My family was impacted by ‘Black Summer’, so I did the latter. Like Scout I experienced hellish orange skies and weeks of toxic air when I stayed with my mother in Albury. My sister evacuated her home in the Snowy Mountains. Before leaving she put out dozens of water trays for the birds and insects. My cousin’s husband and daughter fought huge, horrific walls of flames at Corryong, and the truck convoy taking hay to starving cattle was inspired by true events. I grew up near Scout’s Beechworth home and swam at Woolshed Falls and Lake Hume. My friends lived in Howlong and Burrumbuttock. The places in Scout’s story are all very familiar to me.
Have you been in a rig?
Not properly. I do a lot of country driving and was inspired by truckies during Covid, the unsung heroes who kept our country functioning. I’ve often parked beside big rigs and peered up into the cabins. Creating truck-driving characters was fun. Whenever I see a dog in a truck, I ask the driver if I can take a photo for my collection. There are some very cute truck dogs on the ‘Scout’ page of my website.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Books take a long time from idea to publication, so I usually have a few things on the go. In Feb 2024, a new edition of Granny Grommet and Me will be published (illustrated by Karen Blair). It’s been out of print for several years so I can’t wait for the grannies to surf again. I’m also looking forward to the publication of a picture book with my friend and fabulous illustrator, Frané Lessac. It’s about cattle mustering in northern Australia and was inspired by the lovely Brahman cattle I saw in the Kimberley. A longer project: this year I’ve been researching an inspirational Australian aviator who achieved many things in her short life, but I don’t want to say more until I finish a read-through draft. I’ve written about 12,500 words and so I’m getting closer … It’s due for release late 2024 or early 2025. And I’m also thrilled to have a set of haiku coming out in the 2024 poetry collection Right Way Down and Other Poems. 2024 looks like being an exciting year.
Do you have a tip for young writers who would like to write a story set in real life?
Real life inspires many of my stories. I often take a story spark from history or my life then use my imagination to weave a story around it. That can vary from surfing grannies in Albany (Granny Grommet and Me) to a wartime air raid (The Dog with Seven Names) or the only horse to return from WWI (The Last Light Horse). Or Scout!
My advice for writers is make time to write. Take lots of notes and get down a first draft, no matter how rough, without questioning yourself or overthinking it. Write the beginning and end, with dot point chapters in between, then join those dots. Once you have that first draft you can edit and rework it. Your characters might even take you in another direction. I do dozens and dozens of drafts. If you get stuck, put that story aside for a few weeks and work on another one. Don’t give up.
Scout and the Rescue Dogs is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Shivaun Plozza is an award-winning writer for children and young adults. She lives in Geelong with her cat, Fenchurch. Today we’re thrilled to chat to Shivaun about her latest book Meet Me at the Moon Tree.
The publisher provided Alphabet Soup with a reading copy of Meet Me at the Moon Tree.
From the publisher:
For Carina Sugden, nothing is more special than a moon tree – a tree grown from the seeds taken on the Apollo 14 mission into space. Her father taught her everything she knows about them. But he passed away before they found one together. When Mum relocates the family to the Otway Ranges, Carina becomes determined to find a moon tree on her own. After a mysterious encounter with a black cockatoo, Carina realises there’s magic in this forest. And if magic exists, anything is possible, like seeing her dad one last time…
How did you first hear about moon trees?
I was researching the world’s strangest trees for a story when I came across a reference to ‘moon trees’. Just the name ‘moon trees’ sounded so fascinating to me so I knew I had to discover everything about them. When I learnt their history I threw away my original idea and began working on Meet Me at the Moon Tree. It just goes to show how helpful research is (as well as allowing yourself to follow whatever sparks your curiosity!) to creative writing.
Trees (many kinds!) feature strongly in the story. Were you already knowledgeable in this area or did you need to do some research?
I’ve always been interested in trees but I wasn’t at all knowledgeable about the different species or the many interesting facts I learnt about them along the way (such as the fact that they talk to each other!). I definitely had to do a lot of research. If anyone is interested in learning more about trees I’d highly recommend Can You Hear the Trees Talking by Peter Wohlleben.
Grief is at the centre of this story. Was this part of your plan for the book when you sat down to write the first draft or did it arise during the writing?
From the beginning I knew that I wanted to write a story about a girl looking for a moon tree so I asked myself why she was looking: why did finding a moon tree matter so much to Carina? I wanted the reader to desperately want her to find one, as much as she wanted to find one herself, so it made sense for it to matter because of a promise she’d made to her much beloved father.
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to write stories with real-life settings?
One thing that helps is to treat your setting like it’s a character. Often we think about how we can bring our characters to life but we don’t always think about bringing the setting to life—we just assume our readers will know what we’re talking about when we write that our characters walked down a street or entered the kitchen. But does every street look the same? How about every kitchen? All settings, like people, are distinct so find out what makes that setting distinct and bring it to life on the page.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the shift from childhood into the tween years and how it can create tension in friendships if each friend is moving at a very different pace. So I’m writing about that.
Meet Me at the Moon Treeis out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Wendy Orr is an award-winning author with 40 books for children, teenagers and adults Her books have been published in 29 languages and her Nim’s Island books were made into movies. We’re thrilled to be talking to Wendy about her latest book – Honey and the Valley of Horses.
From the publisher:
When Honey was four and her brother Rumi was a tiny baby, her family loaded up their converted ice-cream-van-camper and drove away from all they knew, as an illness swept the sad wide world. High in the mountains, they crossed a bridge to follow a mysterious herd of enchanted horses into a sheltered valley. The bridge and the track disappeared behind them – and now they are trapped in paradise.
The magical horses are the stars of the book. Is Moongold based on a horse you’ve known?
He’s a combination of our family’s first horse, Biddy, who was an American quarter horse with a touch of Thoroughbred, and my father in law’s palomino Australian stock horse, Pancho. Biddy was over 12 when we got her; I was ten, my sister eight and my brother three, and she behaved differently with each of us, deciding just how much she had to look after us. So she was always completely trustworthy with my little brother, but once I’d learned to ride she’d test me quite a bit – and when we did a paper route for a while, she got bored with doing the same ride every day and started throwing me every time! Pancho was probably the best trained horse I’ve ever ridden, an absolute delight to ride though a very spirited stallion. He had a fantastically smooth gallop, which was as wonderful to watch as to ride, and when he was galloping loose in his paddock, loved to race towards something and stop dead or spin around just before he hit it. And there’s a bit of my own horse Tala, who I got when I was fourteen. She was an enormous mostly Standardbred, who was quite neurotic and very flighty, but always tuned in to my moods and would be very affectionate and gentle if I was upset.
Honey’s family are living in a sort of paradise, but the catch is that they also face isolation and have to find their own way to survive. Was your storytelling influenced by Australia’s recent lockdowns?
Absolutely. Although we live in a rural area, we were classified as metropolitan Melbourne for the purpose of lockdowns, so it was very strict and long. My son and his wife and toddlers lived with us for the first year, but when they moved out they were more than 5 km away so for long periods we weren’t able to see them, or my daughter and her toddlers, who were on the other side of Melbourne. My parents and siblings were in Canada, and with the borders closed for so long I was very aware that I might never see my parents again – which in fact happened, as my dad became ill and died during 2021. So the isolation, the sense of not being able to see people we loved, and also the general fear and anxiety during this time were a crucial part of forming this book. The good thing is that it meant it was all the more important to create a fun and adventurous paradise for the family to escape to. It was certainly very important to me to escape to it while I was writing! And I hope that the reader will enjoy that escape too. We all need special places in our lives and our minds.
What did your editor think about you sending the editor in the book (Mum) off in an ice-cream van to the unfindable Valley of Horses?
She loved it! At first she was worried that no one would know what an editor does, so I hope I explained that during the book. But she loved escaping to the valley too, which made life easier for me.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
I have several things which range from already in a first draft, to an idea I’m quite excited about but don’t know very much about yet. All I can say right now is that I love thinking about how many thousands of people we’re all descended from. Each one of them had their own story – which is quite mindblowing when you think about it!
Do you have a tip for young writers who’d like to write stories with a touch of magic?
If you’re going to use a touch of magic, you need to have clues that something strange could happen, right from the start. It doesn’t need to be much: in Honey and the Valley of Horses I start with the sentence, ‘In the mountains there was a valley, and in the valley were the horses.’
The rhythm of that sentence suggests that this is a story-telling type of story, not a realistic ‘kids going to school’ type of story. Even saying, ‘the horses’ suggests something different than if I’d said, ‘There was a valley in the mountains, and lots of horses lived there.’ Those could be any horses, but saying ‘the horses’ suggests there’s something special.
Making up a world that has a bit of magic means that you can do anything you like – but it doesn’t mean that there are no rules. You need to work out what the rules are for your magic. In this book, the horses certainly have some kind of mysterious magic, and are stronger and faster than other horses – but they are still horses. For example, they can’t talk or fly. You could write it so they do talk or fly, but you would need to show that from the start, or if you didn’t want them to do it until the end, you could have a detail early in the story so that it made sense if they flew when they absolutely needed to. For example there might be a certain grass that people said would make horses fly if they ate it, or there might be old stories about a horse that flew, and people have noticed that this horse looks just like her ancestor, with the white snip above the left fetlock… Just some little hints.
Everything that isn’t magic has to make sense. Unless it’s part of the magic, water can’t run uphill, the sun rises in the east, people and animals need food, water and sleep…
Any touches of fantasy need to be significant for the story. They need to show the reader something important about a character, whether good or bad; or about the place; or they need to move the plot along. If you have a scene you really want to write – a purple sun that shines at night; birds standing still while dogs sing, whatever your imagination has built for you – you can use it as long as you work out why it belongs in the story. Working out the reason might take your story in a different direction, but that’s okay too.
If you roll all these tips into one, it would be, ‘Your story has to make sense right through. If magic is going to help resolve the problems, it needs to be hinted at from the beginning. And it should always be your character who actually solves the problem, whether it’s by being brave enough to dare to use a power, or by passing a test that makes a power appears, or by harnessing a power to do the right thing. But definitely try to avoid having a realistic character in a difficult but realistic situation, when suddenly at the end of the story, Abracadabra! everything is magically solved.
Also, don’t forget that good stories usually have many drafts. If you really liked that Abracadabra! scene you can keep it. You just need to go back and weave in some hints earlier in the story.
But don’t forget the most important writing tip of all, no matter what genre: Have fun, play with your story, and see what happens!
Honey and the Valley of Horses is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Are you in Melbourne? You can meet the author and hear her talking about Honey and the Valley of Horses! 2pm, Saturday, 26 August 2023 at Readings Kids in Carlton. Tickets are free but bookings are essential.
HM Waugh is the author of books for children and young adults. She’s also an environmental scientist and an educator with a love of wild places and high mountains. This has led to icy feet and sunburnt cheeks in magical countries like New Zealand, Nepal, Bolivia and Switzerland! Her latest book is book 2 of a duology: Mars Underground, the page-turning sequel to Mars Awakens.
From the publisher:
Dee, Holt and Chayse set out to cross the planet via a network of subterranean tunnels. Can they reach it without encountering the Others – the sinister biocloud they’ve been running from? And if they make it, can they convince the Newtonians to work with Davinci – those they’ve been trained to hate?
Did you set out to write these books as a duology or did the idea for a second book come after you’d finished writing Mars Awakens?
I am not what you’d call an awesome planner – I start a project by thinking up a character or two, and the details of their world, and I have a basic idea of what the plot might be, but I work the rest out as I write. If you’ve heard of plotters (who plot everything out before) and pantsers (who plan nothing and write ‘by the seat of their pants’), I’m a hybrid of the two, a plantser. So I was happily plantsing along, still writing Mars Awakens, when one day it hit me: there needed to be two books to finish this properly. So the duology was born.
This is your first published series. How did you find writing a sequel as compared to writing Book 1?
Completely different! In some ways it was easier, and in other ways: much harder!
The easier bits were things like the characters and the world – they were already there in my head, fully formed. I knew the main characters like they were my mates. I knew what they’d say, how they’d act. Sometimes, when I’m starting on a new idea, I might get a big way through a first draft and have to rewrite it because the characters finally come alive for me (this happened about 20,000 words into the first draft of Mars Awakens!). But I didn’t have that sort of issue with Mars Underground. Also, all the nitty gritty work of world building had already been done (thanks, Past Me!) so I just got to have super fun expanding it to places I hadn’t been yet. That was all awesome.
Some things were definitely harder, though. I felt this expectation that I’d never really felt before. There were all these readers who had connected with Dee and Holt’s story and were keen to see how it ended. Aaah! I didn’t want to let them down! Plus, I had a deadline! For all my other books I’d already written a full manuscript before signing a contract. But suddenly I had to write an entire sequel by a certain date? Double aaah!
I actually wrote 50,000 words of the sequel before Mars Awakens had been released, but when I picked it up again months later I knew it wasn’t right. And I’m not saying that like, ‘This isn’t quite right, I need to work on it a lot.’ I mean I archived the whole thing. Gone. Fresh document page. Start again from scratch. I re-read Mars Awakens to remind myself of the voice, and then launched into writing an entirely new sequel. And that became Mars Underground. I loved the draft so much, but I was still terrified there would be something missing. So I did multiple happy dances when my publisher came back with several big thumbs up! Yay!
Mars Underground involves your characters travelling via tunnels and caves on Mars, were their adventures inspired by caving adventures of your own?
I love pulling inspiration from real life, so their adventures were like a mix of my own, and the sort of caving and rafting adventures I’d love to have!
I remember going caving on a school holiday camp when I was in my early teens, shuffling on my stomach, so tight to the ground, to get to this special crystal cave. My helmet kept getting jammed, the ceiling was so low. And the crystals were protected behind this mouldering underground gate, so rusty the key could barely work. It was amazing! But once we’d crawled back out, we realised our camp leaders had already decided to leave. Without us. Everyone had climbed up and out, we could see them up by the pinprick of daylight that was the entrance, about to lock the main gates! I’m sure they would’ve realised we were missing before starting the bus, but what an adrenaline hit to be almost left behind in that deep wintry place, our torches running low!
Another experience I drew on was rafting what they call the God River, in Peru. Once we’d got onto the river, the gorge walls rose so high the only way out was through days of rafting. Changed your mind about going? Too bad! It was tough and it was amazing and I loved it! We got to one huge rapid, and the guide told me a girl had been lost there the previous year. I was like, ‘Did they find her again?’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Lost, like dead.’ That definitely made me realise exactly what I’d signed up to do.
So I tried to inject some of that danger and beauty and excitement into my characters’ adventures.
You ran a writing competition for young writers in 2022 and the winner had a character named after them in Mars Underground (Alice!). Did you already have a character ready and waiting to be named, or did you write the character into the plot while you were finishing writing the novel?
I had a few characters I knew I could change the names for, but I waited to see who’d won and what they’d written before I chose which character I’d use. And during editing I changed that character around to be even more awesome!
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
As I write this, it’s halfway through July which means I’m deep in writing a project during Camp NaNoWriMo. I love writing with NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month) because it really gets me into the flow of my writing. Plus, I LOVE a good graph, and NaNo track my progress and give me badges and pep talks too! Normally I’d try to write 50,000 words in the month, but this month I’m aiming for 30,000 because I was on holiday for the first week.
Anyway, I’m loving this project so much. Dangerous new planet. Kids in a competition. Everyone watching their every move. A new friendship based on deception. And then something goes really wrong (of course!) and everything comes to the surface. How are they going to get out of this? It’s so. Much. Fun!
Mars Underground is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
Kelly Canby is an award-winning, internationally published, illustrator and author of over two dozen books for children. Kelly was born in London, England, but has lived in Australia since the age of three. She says this is probably around the same age she started playing with pencils and crayons, and it was probably only a few years after that that she decided playing with pencils and crayons was something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Kelly applies her quirky style to the pages of everything from picture books, to chapter books, to early reader books, to colouring books and beyond!
Today we’re talking to her about her new picture book, Timeless.
From the publisher:
Emit (whose parents turned back time to name him) is surrounded by busyness. Dad is too busy to read stories, Mum is too busy to play games and Emit’s brother and sister are simply too busy doing nothing to do anything, at all. Emit tries everything he can think of to get more time, he tries to catch it, wait for it, but it’s not until Emit tries to buy some time that he learns the secret …
Did you already have a stack of time-themed puns just begging to be turned into this book? Or did the idea for the book send you off in search of puns?
The idea for the book came first and that then sent me down into a deep, deep, pun dive. In the end I had so many puns and idioms I couldn’t use them all! A couple of favourites that didn’t make it to the final book were Emit’s street address: 5 Oak Lock Lane, and a part where Emit told his family he’d like to be a time traveller when he grew up only they ‘didn’t think there was much future in it …’ Also there was a part in the first draft where Emit sticky taped two toy ducks together to create … A time pair o’ ducks. Genius ideas, I think, but in the end they didn’t suit the story so I had to leave them out.
What is your relationship with time? (Are you usually running out of it or always ‘on time’?)
I am that person who is always horribly … early! For appointments especially. And often times 30 or 40 minutes early too because I’m so afraid of being late. But it’s not always a bad thing because it gives me some thinking time in the car, or a chance to get familiar with where I need to be, or have a cup of tea, or reply to emails or ALL of those things. It’s amazing what I can squeeze into that half hour!
Your bright illustrations in Timeless almost seem to glow. Can you tell us about how you create your illustrations?
The brightness all comes from the inks. I chose the most vibrant colours I could find and then got my fan brush (a brush shaped like a fan, of course) and splattered and flicked ink all over the page until it started to look like how I saw it in my head. I wanted the illustrations to have a lot of energy and movement, to echo how busy everyone was, and the fan brush was perfect for that. I didn’t mind at all if ink fell in odd places either because I thought it added to the chaos of being so busy. I also didn’t sketch any of the illustrations with pencil first, I just went straight in and created havoc! That’s right, this book is one great big happy accident!
Do you have a tip for kids who would like to write/illustrate their own picture book?
I definitely have a tip for illustrating and that is to not be afraid of the blank page. Ever! The important thing is to get down on that paper whatever is in your head and when you’re done, when its down, then you can edit or add to it or … throw it out if you wish! But just get something down. Usually I find not thinking about my work too much takes the pressure off and as a result my work looks alive and fresh and full of energy. Actually, that advice works for writing too.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
Right now I am trying to come up with a new idea for a picture book AND I’m working on illustrations for the fifth book in Jaclyn Moriarty’s Kingdoms & Empires series. One of those things is much harder than the other and I’ll leave you to guess which one it is (Hint: it’s the one where were I have to come up with a new idea) !!
Timeless is out now! Ask for it at your favourite bookshop or local library.
alphabetsoup.net.au 