Dear StorySleuths Readers,

All across the country, children are heading back to school. Summer vacation is over! We hope you had lots of time to read while at the beach, the pool, or in the backyard.

We'll be hanging on to summer a bit longer in our upcoming September read, Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. It's the story of an eleven-year-old girl sent to live with relatives in Key West, Florida. If you haven't yet read Turtle in Paradise, grab it for Labor Day weekend! It's a humorous tale for the last official weekend of summer.

We will be hitting a milestone here at StorySleuths at the end of September: our first year of blogging! We've read eleven middle grade and young adult novels, plus looked at eight picture books, uncovering 90 writing tips along the way.

As we plan for the next year, we thought it would be great to know a little bit more about you, our readers. Would you take a few minutes to tell us who you are, what you like about StorySleuths, and what you'd like to see in the future? You could either leave us a comment below, or if you prefer, complete a short survey (guaranteed not to take longer than three minutes!).

We're sad to announce that Meg has decided to take a leave of absence in the coming months. She has been an invaluable member of the StorySleuths team. Her schedule is booked this fall, however, due to teaching commitments. Hopefully, she'll grab her magnifying glass and join us from time to time.

In the meantime, have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! We look forward to discussing Turtle in Paradise after the holiday. (Oh, and for those of you who like to read ahead, we'll be looking at Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in October. What makes it such an engrossing read? We can't wait to find out.)

Heather and Allyson

Add a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Dinah thought there should be more focus on romantic feelings between Meggy and Roger. "After all," she said, "Juliet was only 13." Ah, said I, but Juliet is fiction.

1 Comments on Interview with Karen Cushman: Alchemy and Meggy Swann (Post # 7), last added: 8/13/2010

Display Comments

Kimberley Griffiths Little said, on 8/13/2010 12:52:00 PM

What a great interview and wonderful insight into the writing process, thank you! Loved this - and I love all of Karen Cushman's books.

Add a Comment

Dear Heather and Meg,


In my own writing I am working on transitions—how do I smoothly cut from one scene to another within a chapter? How do I keep my transitions from bogging down the pacing? Here, I will point out a couple of techniques I noticed in reading Alchemy and Meggy Swann.

#1 Passage of time sets up a transition

On page 12, Meggy has been left by Roger to spend her first night in the skinny house at Crooked Lane. The encounter between Roger and Meggy ends when she, “pulled her cloak over her head and settled back into her nightmares.

The very next paragraph opens with, “Morning came at last, as it ever does.” From here Meggy goes on to experience her second day in London. By having Meggy fall asleep, then wake up, Cushman sets up for a transition from one scene to the next. She does this same thing again on page 34, where one scene ends with, “She slept again, feeling not quite so alone. And thus ended Meggy’s second day in the house at the Sign of the Sun.” The next scene begins with, “She woke to soft rain.” This quick switch from night to day prepares the reader for a change in scene while keeping the story moving forward.

#2 Change in location sets up a transition

When writing a first draft, when I want my character to move to a new location for a new scene, I find that I often show the physical movement from Point A to Point B. This movement serves to interrupt the story's pacing, slowing things down. Cushman demonstrates that the movement is not necessary—just put the character on scene in whatever the next location is. Here, on page 89, Meggy is at Master Allyn’s print shop. The scene ends with, “Meggy bade them farewell, left them to their troubles, and went home to her own.”

A less experienced writer might feel a need to show Meggy hobbling for home, perhaps tossing in a little inner dialogue or conversations with strangers along the way. Instead, Cushman’s next sentence is on scene in the next location:

Her father was seated at the table, a jug of ale before him. He looked up at her, his eyes as flat and black and cold as bits of coal in his pale face.

Another example takes place on page 141, where Meggy is home alone, confronted with just how sorry her lot in life is:

She blubbered and sniveled. Finally, damp and exhausted, she wiped her nose, tied her linen cap on tighter, and hurried from the house. There was one thing she could remedy.

The next paragraph opens:

She pounded the bear’s iron paw against the Grimms’ front door, but no one answered.

Here again, Cushman doesn’t waste time showing the character moving from Point A to Point B, instead she simply puts the character on location and keeps the story flowing.

StorySleuths’ Tip # 90: To change scenes mid chapter consider a quick shift in time or location to move the story forward without slowing down the pacing.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Dear Heather and Allyson,

What you said about details and about every word counting, Heather, got me thinking about the specific words that Cushman selected in writing Alchemy and Meggy Swann to (1) convey the historical time/setting, and (2) develop the characters.

Some of the unusual words, like “gallimaufry” (p. 4), “fishwife” (p. 4), and “kirtle” (p. 60), were in use in Elizabethan times but are not in common use today, while others, like “dampnified” (p. 4), “annoyous” (p. 10), and “tipsify” (p. 59), seem to have been created out of familiar words. They convey a feeling for another time by sounding old, even though they aren’t “real” words. They sound as if they could be real, though, because we recognize the root of the word, but the added syllables or suffixes are decoys Cushman has used to create the illusion of past usage.

Cushman also uses familiar words in unusual combinations to convey a feeling for the past and to delineate characters, such as Meggy’s repeated exclamation, “ye toads and vipers,” which opens the story and introduces Meggy:

“Ye toads and vipers,” the girl said, as her granny often had, “ye toads and vipers,” and she snuffled a great snuffle that echoed in the empty room. (p. 1) 

Cushman uses the phrase “ye toads and vipers” to individualize Meggy while also filling in part of her backstory--noting that “the girl” had learned the phrase from her granny establishes the connection between them at the outset. And each time “ye toads and vipers” is echoed throughout the novel we get a familiar jolt of recognition.

During a presentation that Karen Cushman made to the Western Washington Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in May, when asked how she came up with some of the unique words that she used to push the story back to Elizabethan times, Cushman said that the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary was a rich resource, as were Shakespeare’s plays, “especially for the insults.” Also, she said, “I sometimes made the structure of the sentence a bit odd” to give the story a sense of both familiarity and distance.

Cushman’s message was to be creative and stretch the limits—but not too far. I can imagine her chortling over some wonderful constructions as she wrote Alchemy and Meggy Swann. One of my favorites is this enraged outburst Meggy addressed to Roger when he turned his back on her and began walking away during one of their altercations:

“Go then, you writhled, beetle-brained knave!” she shouted. “You churl, you slug, you stony-hearted villain! May onions grow in your ears!” (p. 124)

Storysleuths’ Tip # 89: Tackle the challenge of language like a giant jigsaw puzzle, searching in reference materials (and your own imagination) to find pieces that fit together to delineate characters and clarify setting, while avoiding overloading the text with arcane, awkward words and phrases.

Add a Comment

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

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

Display Comments Add a Comment

The StorySleuths are once again overjoyed to share a review prepared especially for us by poet Julie Larios. This time, Julie looks at Joyce Sidman's book, UBIQUITOUS: Celebrating Nature's Survivors. Take it away, Julie!

Not only is “ubiquitous”* a good word to describe the poet Joyce Sidman lately (*Definition: something that is – or seems to be—everywhere at the same time), it’s also the title of her most recently released collection of poetry.


UBIQUITOUS: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors is the new jewel in Sidman’s impressive string of picture books over the last five years, all of which have garnered critical attention and praise, and two of which (Red Sings from Treetops and Song of the Water Boatman) have been named Caldecott Honor books. Beckie Prange, the talented artist who paired up with Sidman for Song of the Water Boatman, is back, illustrating what some people might consider daunting subjects for poets and readers (bacteria, lichens, diatoms, grasses!) as well as more familiar animals and plants like sharks, coyotes, squirrels, and dandelions. Homo sapiens put in an appearance, as do crows, ants, beetles and—one of my favorites— mollusks (“…the pink lip/of a pearled world. // Who swirled your whorls and ridges?”)


What could pull these seemingly unrelated subjects together into a collection of poetry? Well, it’s all there in the subtitle: These are nature’s survivors – tenacious, sturdy, prolific, adaptable, diverse and street-smart (meadow-smart , muck-smart, desert smart and saltwater-smart, too!) It’s a fresh and wonderful concept that’s been executed with elegance – and I do think “elegance” is the right word. The book is not as playful as Red Sings from Treetops, nor is it as serene as Song of the Water Boatman, nor as simple as This Is Just to Say. It isn’t a melody, as those other three seem to be; instead, this book feels positively symphonic. While each one of the poems might be said to function as part of a song line through the book, the non-fiction which accompanies each poem on the facing page is quite a bit longer and more densely packed. It provides deep harmony and variations on the theme. Think Beethoven for this book rather than Mozart!


That’s not to say that Sidman’s particular style as a poet has changed. She’s still got her signature range of traditional forms (for example, several concrete poems, which echo the shape of the object being described) and rhythms, metered as well as free verse, rhyming and non-rhyming lines. This time around, though, the diction is slightly altered. For example, one of my favorites, called “Scarab,” (shaped like the beetle it describes) is almost incantatory: - you’re there, in Egypt, along with the Pharoahs, worshipping:

1 Comments on Poet Julie Larios on Joyce Sidman’s UBIQUITOUS: “a symphony of a book”, last added: 7/8/2010

Display Comments

Meg said, on 7/8/2010 9:40:00 PM

What a fabulous post, Julie! Thank you for describing Ubiquitous so poetically--it appealed to me the moment I picked up for so many of the reasons you clarified. Your description of the whole as "symphonic" is spot on, and I also appreciate your pointing out significant details such as the sharply "bladed" grass.
Meg

Add a Comment

The StorySleuths were fortunate to be able to ask a few questions of the amazing Rita Williams-Garcia. Busy with her work as a member of the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and dashing to and from the ALA conference, Ms. Williams-Garcia took time out of her busy schedule for us, and we thank her. And now, some words from Rita:

1. We always hear that when writing historical fiction it is challenging to keep from including each and every incredibly cool tidbit gathered during the research phase. Is there one particular piece of information that you really wanted to plug in but just couldn't find the place for?

For sure! Actually, there were many that went into my “Unused” folder. I made a deal with myself, that if I found a place for any one of them, in it would go. The other deal I made was to not fish around in the “unused” folder. I’d have to come upon a place in the writing that begged to have the material woven in. Now, 1968 was a huge year. I kept a diary of one line entries--truth told, too many TV Guide entries--and it was hard to pick, so I remained close to the “Free Huey” movement. I desperately wanted to include Angela Davis and couldn’t do it as naturally as I would have liked to. And there were so many historical events from my childhood. This meant my recollections of Dr. King’s assassination which lead to the Eric Starvo Galt aka James Earl Ray manhunt; hearing Bobby Kennedy’s speech at the Monterey Peninsula Airport and taking a picture with him; more specifics about the Vietnam conflict, and Eartha Kitt being removed as “Catwoman” from the TV show Batman because of her anti-war remarks at a luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson--could not be used in the novel. I could always feel myself reaching to make connections and I’ll tell myself to “stay on story.” It’s part of my work song.

2. Are there any characters that changed significantly since your original concept, and if so, how are they different? Are there characters that started out in the story but got cut?

This time around I didn’t have to cut any characters, but their roles did change. The most significant change was Fern. I always intended Fern to be Delphine’s baby. I had an image of her, and her role was to bring out Delphine’s maternal instincts while hampering Delphine’s carefree childhood. I had given her a sweet little soul and Miss Patty Cake. But then, Fern was also the reason or excuse for Cecile’s departure. Her sweetness doesn’t really work on Cecile who won’t leap up to get her a simple glass of ice water. And then I saw and understood why: Like Cecile, Fern insists on herself even at birth. That there is something in Fern that wants to fly off the handle in a rage (although this has to be understood in her fist banging), whereas in Cecile it is overt. I had to make a confrontation between Fern and Cecile. Fern is the undoing of everything.

Sister Mukumbu’s role had changed significantly from the plan. Originally, Sister Mukumbu was t

1 Comments on INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR: One Crazy Summer, last added: 7/2/2010

Display Comments

Heather Hedin Singh said, on 7/2/2010 2:50:00 PM

Thank you, Rita, for these great insights about your writing process!

Add a Comment

…the climactic scene must grow naturally out of the actions that preceded it, which in turn must have grown naturally out of the personalities of the characters.” (p. 108)

I’m only eleven years old. And I do everything. I have to, because you’re not there to do it. I’m only eleven years old, but I do the best I can. I don’t just up and leave. (p. 206) 

Here was my mother telling me her life. Who she was. How she came to be Cecile. Answering questions I’d stored in my head from the time I realized she would not come back. (p. 209) 

it may consist of a sentence, a paragraph, or a brief scene clarifying what happens to the character after she changes. (p. 112) 

View Next 25 Posts