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With only two days left to register for the New Jersey SCBWI June Conference, I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the chance to spend four hours with Sudipta Bardhan at her Writer’s Intensive on Friday June 7th titled, Chapter Books and Series Writing. There are skills writers need to learn to write a good chapter book. No need to spin your wheels trying to bridge that gap between picture books and middle grade, when you can attend Sudipta’s intensive. 

You may have noticed Sudipta is a regular on the NJSCBWI faculty each year for the June Conference. The reason for that is she does an exceptional job. Everyone who attends always leaves saying how much they learned.

Here is the blurb about the workshop:

Creating a publishable manuscript is challenging enough; creating one with series potential can be a different animal altogether. The writer must develop a complete stand-alone plot that, at the same time, is open for continued interpretation. In addition, the main character must both develop throughout the pilot book but retain some consistent characteristic/circumstance that can tie the series together. This intensive discusses ways to create character-driven books that editors may see as strong enough to support a series.

Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen is the author of more than thirty books for children, ranging from thirteen picture books to over a dozen nonfiction books for young readers to a newly-contracted chapter book series called Spectacles of Destiny. Her titles include Hampire!, The Worst Twelve Days of Christmas, Half-Pint Pete the Pirate, Pirate Princess, and Chicks Run Wild. She speaks at conferences, educator events, and schools across the country, teaching the craft of writing to children and adults.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

When it comes to maintaining continuity of plot details in a series, it can be helpful to create a scene chart or a storyboard for each story as well as for the overall series itself.

Some novelists use index cards or Post-it notes to build a storyboard, because they allow for manipulation of the sequence of events in quick and immediately visible ways – but for tracking the many elements of a series over several books, a spreadsheet may be a better choice.

Whichever method you choose, the elements to consider keeping track of include:

• Book Number / Title
• Chapter Number / Title
• Scene Number
• Time / Time Frame
• Location / Setting
• Characters
• Central Problem/ Conflict
• Action / Events
• Surprises / New Information
• Open Questions

The last item is particularly important when it comes to avoiding red herrings and tying up loose ends.  Make note of any questions, puzzles or mysteries that come up in the course of a chapter so that you can track when, where and how they get resolved.

Of course tracking plot details for continuity is different than crafting a plot in the first place – but keeping a record of the myriad details can be helpful when it comes to plot development and the editing/revision process.   On the Children’s Book Hub, we have spreadsheets for both crafting plot and tracking the details, but you can create your own by copying and pasting the above elements into headings on a spreadsheet.

Next up, continuity of voice…

This June Illustration was sent in by Joanne Friar. You may recognize her work, since she was featured in March on Illustrator Saturday.   She says, “As a child I spent summer vacations hiking with my family and that tradition continued with our own children. Nothing says summer to me like the cool shade of a mountain forest and the smell of pine trees!  www.joannefriar.com

The Books Go On and On: Creating a Chapter Book Series – Workshop given by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

Written by: Tiffany Alexander

Sudipta gave us a great inside view of chapter book series creation. She narrowed down the topic of chapter book series to writing commercial/genre stories. The overriding principle is that, throughout the books in a series, a couple of elements stay the same, with some differences included in each book.

Sudipta stressed that series books (or any book) must start with character. The main character of a series will have to support the creation of many stories, so character is important.

1.)  The character has to be both charismatic (in that you can draw from him/her repeatedly for new stories) and ordinary (so that readers will be able to relate to the character).

2.)  The character should have one or two unique characteristics, weaknesses, or quirks to give them depth and make them interesting/sympathetic.

3.)   A character can be ordinary, but not boring or flat – give your character specific traits.

Sudipta advised us to “give the ordinary a bit of a kick.” She also showed how developing character can create the series hook. For example, for her series, Sudipta formed a character described as someone who is self-conscious about wearing glasses and feels it is a weakness. As Sudipta developed the character, she realized that the glasses (the character’s apparent weakness) would also hold special powers, and further, would be a source of conflict and strength. At first they were just glasses, but in the process of writing they became an object from which the story/plot emanated.

A well-formed series must also have a good cast of supporting characters. They will help maintain the series and make it rich in story possibilities. Sudipta named five different stock character types:

1.) The sidekick – stays with the main character through thick and thin; if there is more than one sidekick, each should bring something different to the table.

2.) The nemesis – a character who either intentionally or unintentionally gets in the main character’s way and foils his/her plans, and it could be someone who always seems more skilled or “better” than the main character in some way.

3.) The secret-sharer – a peer who knows the main character’s secrets or feelings, and  who might also impart wisdom or help keep the main character on track, without making decisions for the main character.

4.) The positive authority figure – possibly another source of wisdom or reason, or someone who offers comfort to the main character, and often someone the main character wishes to emulate or does not want to disappoint.

5.) The negative authority figure – someone who has power over and creates difficulty for the main character, not necessarily the person who creates the big problem, but who is still problematic in some way, think “mean school principal” or the like.

Interactions between characters are definitely key.

Setting is impor

Maybe the worst part of writing a series is the nagging sense that, after ten books or so, nobody really notices if the books are any good or not. Especially not your publisher. Your editor cares, for sure, but everyone else . . . shrug. The sum of your work gets reduced down to a number, the notion of “quality” gets subsumed by “quantity” — and the book is as good as its sales figures. I know, I know: Real World 101. But still.

So as part of my continuing “Stories Behind the Story” series, I’d like to put the focus on Jisgaw Jones Super Special #4: The Case of the Santa Claus Mystery. It’s one of my favorites in the series and it’s probably out of print.

When I wrote the book, I really tried to create a great holiday story — a story with value and content that could stand up to any of the Christmas classics. So I decided to tackle a tricky subject: Jigsaw gets hired to prove if Santa is real or not. Now I knew that I had a range of readers with a varying beliefs, and I felt a keen obligation toward them, so I was determined that my book would not spoil it for anyone. In essence, I wrote myself into a box, locked the lid, and like Houdini had to squirm myself out of it.

Here’s an early scene in Jigsaw’s basement office:

Sally Ann’s mood turned serious. She stared hard into my eyes. Her arms were crossed. “I want to meet Santa,” she demanded.

I cracked open my detective journal. “Santa?” I repeated, scribbling down the name. “Last name?”

“Claus,” Sally Ann said.

“Santa . . . Claus,” I wrote.

“That’s the one,” Sally Ann said.

“Big white beard? Wears black books and a red suit? Last seen driving a sleigh led by, let’s see . . .” I flipped through the pages of my journal and pretended to read, “. . . eight flying reindeer?”

Sally Ann didn’t like being teased. She never cracked a smile. Instead, she rummaged inside her pink plastic pocketbook. She pulled out the head of a Barbie doll — that’s it, just the head. Sally Ann frowned and continued poking around. She pulled out some baseball cards, a tissue (used, I suspect), a handful of rocks, beads, a hammer (!), and other assorted junk.

“Here,” she finally said.

Sally Ann smoothed out a dollar bill on my desk.

Illustration by Jamie Smith.

She was serious.

Sally Ann Simms wanted to meet Santa Claus.

And it didn’t seem like she would take no for an answer.

I asked her why.

“We have business to discuss,” she grumbled.

And so the book begins, fueled by the mystery. Along the way, a number of  entertaining events occur — including a sly

Actually, I'm not going to try and tell you how to write a series.

I don't approach books that way. I'm wary about rules about how to write anything, basically. I get nervous when writers approach a project by saying, "I'm going to write a series." Or "I'm going to write a chapter book."

I've critiqued many manuscripts which began with the genre first. I would suggest it's not the best way to start a book. That the best way to start is to have an idea and then write. The age of your protagonist, the situation, the conflict ... these are the things that will determine the language you use, the length of your sentences, and the way your characters talk, which ultimately will lead up to the genre your book falls into.

As in, don't try to write a chapter book with a 10-year-old protagonist.

Having said that, of course, I'm immediately aware that there will be exceptions to that idea. With reading levels being what they are, and publishers attempting to fill previously unknown niches to accommodate those levels, new genres seem to be popping up every week.


I have never actually set out to write a series. But I started thinking about the subject when I knew my week here was coming up because the first of what's going to be my 4th series is coming out from Putnam next week.

I wrote the first book as a one-off ... Something. I had no idea it was going to fit into a relatively new "Transitional Reader" genre. The early chapter book genre.

What happened was that I saw a sign in front of a school and I got an idea. The book turned out to be as long as it did because of the simplicity of that idea. It ended up being roughly 2,900 words divided into ten chapters. It had short sentences. It was called KISS AND GO LANE. The little girl was called Megan. She just happened to wear - and depend upon - her pink tutu for courage because it makes her feel like a pink princess.

My editor, Susan Kochan, liked it. She found a terrific illustrator in Stephanie Roth Sisson who made Megan come to life. The character and concept suddenly looked as if they had the potential for longevity. Megan became Posey. I got my first multiple-book contract - ever  - and I've been doing this for quite awhile. It has been a delightful journey.

[A bit of background: my other series came one-book-at-a-time, including the six Owen Foote chapter books and the three Sophie Hartley middle grade novels that I did with Clarion. Ditto the 4 Moose and Hildy books I did with Marshall Cavendish. In retrospect, for a person like me, this was a comfortable way to go about ending up with a series. As someone who left her homework, for her entire educational career, until the very last minute, a multiple-book contract feels like homework. Yes, it's great. Yes, it's wonderful. The next book is due on ... gulp.

So. Series can, and do, happen. But which comes first? And what makes it have life as a series -  is it the concept? the character? or the plot?

Each writer goes about ending up with a series in his or her own way. This week, I'm going to talk to Barrie Summy about how she ended up writing her middle grade mystery series for Delacorte, I SO DON'T DO MYSTERIES, I SO DON'T DO SPOOKY, and her most recent - I SO DON'T DO MAKE UP.

I'm also going to talk to Greg Trine about his hilarious MELVIN BEEDERMAN, SUPER HERO series.

All of our experiences have been different.

Sometimes, it's a savvy agent who recognizes what you have. Other times, it's your editor. I'm not sure that any one of the three of us went into our projects planning on being handed a series contract, but I imagi